DLT or LTO or AIT for new tape drive?

I have a home LAN with about 20 GB online. As I get more into digital
photography and possibly even videos, I expect that amount of storage
can grow quite a lot in the next few years.

My current tape drive is 7/14 GB, and a full backup each month
requires about 4-5 media changes, counting the verify cycle. I would
like to get a drive that allows me to fit say 40 GB (or more) onto one
cartridge. Without bankrupting my Treasury of course.

Should I focus on DLT or AIT or LTO? 68-pin SCSI or even SCA.

Which format is most reliable and cost-effective, considering both
drive and media cost? What about buying a drive used on eBay? (no
flames please!) Are any of these formats dead-ends like my current 8
mm drive/format?

I don't need to back up 20 GB in say 30 minutes. I doubt my systems
could even pump out the data fast enough. (I'm moving to 1 GB LAN for
my newer systems.) A drive with say 40-80 GB native storage would
give me enough "headroom" so that even 2-4 years from now, I should
still be able to do a full backup with one cartridge.

Also, do any of these formats "shoeshine" the tape if the drive isn't
getting data fast enough?

"Lady Margaret Thatcher" wrote
in message news
I have a home LAN with about 20 GB online. As I get more into digital
photography and possibly even videos, I expect that amount of storage
can grow quite a lot in the next few years.

My current tape drive is 7/14 GB, and a full backup each month
requires about 4-5 media changes, counting the verify cycle. I would
like to get a drive that allows me to fit say 40 GB (or more) onto one
cartridge. Without bankrupting my Treasury of course.

Should I focus on DLT or AIT or LTO? 68-pin SCSI or even SCA.

Which format is most reliable and cost-effective, considering both
drive and media cost? What about buying a drive used on eBay? (no
flames please!) Are any of these formats dead-ends like my current 8
mm drive/format?

How about VXA-2 from Exabyte? Cheap drives, very reliable technology. By
using the short X6 tapes you can get the capacity you need today at a very
good price, and if you need more capacity you can go to X10 or X23 tapes for
more.

All media formats are dead-end at some point. DDS is dead-end today.Your
current 8mm drive format has been around for 25 years before becoming
obsolete. DLT is about to become extinct. LTO is master of the enterprise
universe today, but real overkill for your application.

Rob

Lady Margaret Thatcher wrote

I have a home LAN with about 20 GB online. As I get more
into digital photography and possibly even videos, I expect that
amount of storage can grow quite a lot in the next few years.

Tape is well past its useby date for that situation now.

My current tape drive is 7/14 GB, and a full backup each month
requires about 4-5 media changes, counting the verify cycle. I
would like to get a drive that allows me to fit say 40 GB (or more)
onto one cartridge. Without bankrupting my Treasury of course.

Makes a lot more sense to use and extra hard drive for that situation,
with new photos written to duplicated DVD media to protect against
theft of the system, fire and flood etc, one copy offsite.

Should I focus on DLT or AIT or LTO? 68-pin SCSI or even SCA.

None of the above.

Which format is most reliable and cost-effective, considering both
drive and media cost? What about buying a drive used on eBay?
(no flames please!) Are any of these formats dead-ends like my
current 8 mm drive/format?

Yep, all of them basically in your situation.

I don't need to back up 20 GB in say 30 minutes. I doubt my systems
could even pump out the data fast enough. (I'm moving to 1 GB LAN for
my newer systems.) A drive with say 40-80 GB native storage would
give me enough "headroom" so that even 2-4 years from now, I should
still be able to do a full backup with one cartridge.

So another hard drive makes a lot more sense.

Also, do any of these formats "shoeshine" the
tape if the drive isn't getting data fast enough?

Lady Margaret Thatcher wrote:
I have a home LAN with about 20 GB online. I would
like to get a drive that allows me to fit say 40 GB (or more) onto one
cartridge. Without bankrupting my Treasury of course.

Should I focus on DLT or AIT or LTO? 68-pin SCSI or even SCA.

No I would go with VXA from Exabyte

On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 18:50:06 +0200, "Rob Turk"
wrote:

"Lady Margaret Thatcher" wrote
in message news
I have a home LAN with about 20 GB online. As I get more into digital
photography and possibly even videos, I expect that amount of storage
can grow quite a lot in the next few years.

My current tape drive is 7/14 GB, and a full backup each month
requires about 4-5 media changes, counting the verify cycle. I would
like to get a drive that allows me to fit say 40 GB (or more) onto one
cartridge. Without bankrupting my Treasury of course.

Should I focus on DLT or AIT or LTO? 68-pin SCSI or even SCA.

Which format is most reliable and cost-effective, considering both
drive and media cost? What about buying a drive used on eBay? (no
flames please!) Are any of these formats dead-ends like my current 8
mm drive/format?

How about VXA-2 from Exabyte? Cheap drives, very reliable technology. By

Well, nothing against Exabyte, but their drives and media, while good,
aren't as bullet-proof, never-fail as my earlier QIC drives, including
a 1 GB native Tandberg drive. But that format seemed to becoming
obsolete, and newer drives couldn't even read some of the older QIC
formats.

I would like to avoid that scenario again.


using the short X6 tapes you can get the capacity you need today at a very
good price, and if you need more capacity you can go to X10 or X23 tapes for
more.

Sounds good. I'll have to check it out. Which vendor is preferred?
Or to be avoided.



All media formats are dead-end at some point. DDS is dead-end today.Your
current 8mm drive format has been around for 25 years before becoming
obsolete. DLT is about to become extinct. LTO is master of the enterprise

Ah. I hadn't realized that DLT is dead-ending. LTO might be nice.
If it is master of the enterprise, that tells me it's reliable. But
it also tells me that it could be too expensive for me, and the native
transfer rates to keep an LTO drive "full" might be more than my LAN
could possibly supply.

I previous asked about "shoeshining" with different formats. Is AIT
less prone to shoeshining than the other formats?


universe today, but real overkill for your application.

Yes, could be. Heck none of my systems are even rack-mounted, and
every self-respecting enterprise I know about is all "how many U is
that server, " and about blade servers to increase CPU density per
rack.

Thanks for your reply.

Thatcher

On 13 Sep 2005 17:49:55 -0700, "Iago" wrote:


Lady Margaret Thatcher wrote:
I have a home LAN with about 20 GB online. I would
like to get a drive that allows me to fit say 40 GB (or more) onto one
cartridge. Without bankrupting my Treasury of course.

Should I focus on DLT or AIT or LTO? 68-pin SCSI or even SCA.

No I would go with VXA from Exabyte

OK. You seem to agree with the other person who replied. Why?

Which vendors/models would you like?

Thatcher (Desdemona)

"Lady Margaret Thatcher" wrote
in message ...
On 13 Sep 2005 17:49:55 -0700, "Iago" wrote:


Lady Margaret Thatcher wrote:
I have a home LAN with about 20 GB online. I would
like to get a drive that allows me to fit say 40 GB (or more) onto one
cartridge. Without bankrupting my Treasury of course.

Should I focus on DLT or AIT or LTO? 68-pin SCSI or even SCA.

No I would go with VXA from Exabyte

OK. You seem to agree with the other person who replied. Why?

Which vendors/models would you like?

VXA is just very robust technology for an attractive price, I guess Iago
found that out too ;-) Full disclosu I'm a bit brainwashed myself, I've
worked for Exabyte for many years.

There's just one vendor for VXA, it's Exabyte. The media is manufactured by
three or four different companies, but you can't order any specific brand.
They all sell through Exabyte/Imation, they all work equally well.

I like the SCSI version internal version, but you have a choise of IDE, SCSI
and Firewire. The Firewire is nice if you want to move the drive from one
system to the next. The IDE drives are meant for OEM's, not sure if you can
get them through normal channel shops. You can always call Exabyte and find
out.

VXA-3 is due out soon. This will give you double capacity and speed on the
same tapes. The drives may be a bit higher priced, but if nothing else it
will make VXA-2 go down in price..

Rob

On Thu, 15 Sep 2005 08:09:59 +0200, "Rob Turk"
wrote:

"Lady Margaret Thatcher" wrote
in message ...
On 13 Sep 2005 17:49:55 -0700, "Iago" wrote:


Lady Margaret Thatcher wrote:
I have a home LAN with about 20 GB online. I would
like to get a drive that allows me to fit say 40 GB (or more) onto one
cartridge. Without bankrupting my Treasury of course.

Should I focus on DLT or AIT or LTO? 68-pin SCSI or even SCA.

No I would go with VXA from Exabyte

OK. You seem to agree with the other person who replied. Why?

Which vendors/models would you like?

VXA is just very robust technology for an attractive price, I guess Iago
found that out too ;-) Full disclosu I'm a bit brainwashed myself, I've
worked for Exabyte for many years.

Well, I just popped over to the Exa site and yes, VXA does seem to be
the right option for me. Glad people replied with "other."

One question, if you don't mind. About 12-15 months ago, I had some
dealings with Exa support. One of the support people there, who were
all very helpful, told me that the company was not doing well and
layoffs were impending. How is business these days? Is headcount
stable or growing?

There's just one vendor for VXA, it's Exabyte. The media is manufactured by
three or four different companies, but you can't order any specific brand.
They all sell through Exabyte/Imation, they all work equally well.

I like the SCSI version internal version, but you have a choise of IDE, SCSI

I've been a SCSI guy since it was spelled SASI. Worked at the
(long-gone) company where SASI was invented and commercialized.

and Firewire. The Firewire is nice if you want to move the drive from one
system to the next. The IDE drives are meant for OEM's, not sure if you can
get them through normal channel shops. You can always call Exabyte and find
out.

VXA-3 is due out soon. This will give you double capacity and speed on the
same tapes. The drives may be a bit higher priced, but if nothing else it
will make VXA-2 go down in price..

Yeah, and I'm not sure that I really need VXA-3. And yes, I'm hoping
that people will upgrade, so these older drives will suddenly flood
ebay, driving down those prices also.

What is your opinion of buying a VXA drive used off ebay?

Rob

Did you consider backing up to external USB disk?

It is certainly faster to backup and restore, cheaper, verifiable, and
eventually more reliable.

The fact that backup to disk is here to stay is a fact. There are
solutions such as the Relative Rev Backup that treats backup to disk in
a completely new way, making it robust and cost effective at the same
time.



Joe Rom King
--
Unattended File-Level Incremental Backup to Disk, with Backup
Generation Manager.
http://www.datamills.com

On 09/15/05 05:44 am Joe Rom King tossed the following ingredients into
the ever-growing pot of cybersoup:

Did you consider backing up to external USB disk?

It is certainly faster to backup and restore, cheaper, verifiable, and
eventually more reliable.

The fact that backup to disk is here to stay is a fact. There are
solutions such as the Relative Rev Backup that treats backup to disk in
a completely new way, making it robust and cost effective at the same
time.

Downside of using hard disks for backup:

1. As fragile as (or even more fragile than) the primary device on which
the data is stored. Likely to die if handled without extreme care. (I
lost an external drive and all its data when somebody bumped it while it
was spinning.) The data in your machine is on SCSI drives because you
care about "industrial-strength" solutions*, but you're willing to
entrust your backups to a USB-connected device that contains an "it's
good enough for home users" IDE drive?

2. How many "generations" of backups can/will you store on one?

3. How many redundant copies can/will you store off site?

*I am reading this on the SCSI ng.

Perce