Can you recommend a tape drive for our charity?

I work for a medium sized charity.
We prefer to do a full back up on our windows 2000 server and are
using Veritas backup.

We now need to invest in a larger capacity tape drive.
35MB - 50MB uncompressed.

Would anyone like to make a recommendation?

Thank you

We now need to invest in a larger capacity tape drive.
35MB - 50MB uncompressed.

I think you meant GB not MB.

Graham Cross wrote:

I work for a medium sized charity.
We prefer to do a full back up on our windows 2000 server and are
using Veritas backup.

We now need to invest in a larger capacity tape drive.
35MB - 50MB uncompressed.

Would anyone like to make a recommendation?

Assuming you meant GB and not MB, and assuming you want to use tape rather
than using 40 GB drives in removable trays as disposable media (not
necessarily a bad option), find a DLT-IV drive on ebay. Two things about
them--one, use good brand tapes and buy new--the major failing of DLT
drives is that if the leader fails to engage the tape you have to open the
drive to fish it out, and this seems to happen more on second-hand
tapes--two, learn how to fish the leader out--it's not hard but it's scary
as Hell the first time you open up a multi-thousand dollar drive to do it.
Not that DLT-IV drives are that expensive anymore.

Thank you

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Yeah I can make a recommendation, but it isn't a tape drive. I recommend
using hard drives for backup media. If you are willing to consider this,
you can ask questions here about it, or search groups.google.com for already
discussed options.

--Dan

"Graham Cross" wrote in message
om...
I work for a medium sized charity.
We prefer to do a full back up on our windows 2000 server and are
using Veritas backup.

We now need to invest in a larger capacity tape drive.
35MB - 50MB uncompressed.

Would anyone like to make a recommendation?

Thank you

dg wrote:

Yeah I can make a recommendation, but it isn't a tape drive. I recommend
using hard drives for backup media. If you are willing to consider this,
you can ask questions here about it, or search groups.google.com for already
discussed options.


Great recommendation - absolutely superb for my business.

Pity everyone didn't go down that route - I'd be even more inundated
with work.


Odie
--

RetroData
Data Recovery Experts
www.retrodata.co.uk

Odie Ferrous wrote:

dg wrote:

Yeah I can make a recommendation, but it isn't a tape drive. I recommend
using hard drives for backup media. If you are willing to consider this,
you can ask questions here about it, or search groups.google.com for
already discussed options.


Great recommendation - absolutely superb for my business.

Pity everyone didn't go down that route - I'd be even more inundated
with work.

Actually, you wouldn't. When one of the disks in your backup set fails, you
toss it just like you would a bad tape. Your business comes from people
who don't back up at all or don't run a good backup strategy.

I priced out a variety of backup options for a small system the other
day--the full 5-day rotation backup set with disks costs less than a single
good-quality tape drive. If the system grows beyond a certain size then
the tape becomes attractive, but this particular system will probably not
grow much beyond its current size in the next five years.

Odie

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

"J. Clarke" wrote:

Actually, you wouldn't. When one of the disks in your backup set fails, you
toss it just like you would a bad tape. Your business comes from people
who don't back up at all or don't run a good backup strategy.

I priced out a variety of backup options for a small system the other
day--the full 5-day rotation backup set with disks costs less than a single
good-quality tape drive. If the system grows beyond a certain size then
the tape becomes attractive, but this particular system will probably not
grow much beyond its current size in the next five years.

Odie

I fully acknowledge that any form of backup is better than none.

However, I get a lot of drives in that contain backed up data that was
then deleted from the original drive. Slightly different scenario,
admittedly, but it does happen. Especially when the backup device is
housed in an external USB caddy. Plenty of those.


Odie
--

RetroData
Data Recovery Experts
www.retrodata.co.uk

Odie Ferrous wrote:

"J. Clarke" wrote:

Actually, you wouldn't. When one of the disks in your backup set fails,
you
toss it just like you would a bad tape. Your business comes from people
who don't back up at all or don't run a good backup strategy.

I priced out a variety of backup options for a small system the other
day--the full 5-day rotation backup set with disks costs less than a
single
good-quality tape drive. If the system grows beyond a certain size then
the tape becomes attractive, but this particular system will probably not
grow much beyond its current size in the next five years.

Odie

I fully acknowledge that any form of backup is better than none.

However, I get a lot of drives in that contain backed up data that was
then deleted from the original drive. Slightly different scenario,
admittedly, but it does happen. Especially when the backup device is
housed in an external USB caddy. Plenty of those.

I presume that they were using a single backup drive instead of a set of
them used in rotation?

The mistake that gets made is using a disk as a substitute for a tape
_drive_. That's not the way to do it, the way to do it is to use it as a
substitute for a tape _cartridge_. And treat it as such--rotate through
five (or ten, or however long a rotation makes you feel safe) of them and
if one starts reporting errors don't diddle with it, toss it and replace
it. You may lose a day that way if your main drive and the previous day's
backup both fail at the same time, but you run that risk with tape as well.

The cost of high capacity disks is such that this is actually an attractive
proposition in many cases.




Odie

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

"J. Clarke" wrote:

Odie Ferrous wrote:

"J. Clarke" wrote:


I fully acknowledge that any form of backup is better than none.

However, I get a lot of drives in that contain backed up data that was
then deleted from the original drive. Slightly different scenario,
admittedly, but it does happen. Especially when the backup device is
housed in an external USB caddy. Plenty of those.

I presume that they were using a single backup drive instead of a set of
them used in rotation?

Of course they weren't! Even "educated" people rarely do this. "It
only happens to other people."


The mistake that gets made is using a disk as a substitute for a tape
_drive_. That's not the way to do it, the way to do it is to use it as a
substitute for a tape _cartridge_. And treat it as such--rotate through
five (or ten, or however long a rotation makes you feel safe) of them and
if one starts reporting errors don't diddle with it, toss it and replace
it. You may lose a day that way if your main drive and the previous day's
backup both fail at the same time, but you run that risk with tape as well.

I always used to use one tape a day, and a new tape at the week's end.
Ditto month end, with two duplicate tapes at year end.

Trouble is, a few years ago, a decent tape streamer with media cost a
lot less than a hard drive. Perhaps one quarter the price of a hard
drive.

These days, a decent unit with media costs about five to ten times more
than the drive being backed up. Overall, this is a factor of 20x to 40x
more expensive than a few years back.

Little wonder things have changed.


Odie



Odie

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)


--

RetroData
Data Recovery Experts
www.retrodata.co.uk

Previously Odie Ferrous wrote:
"J. Clarke" wrote:

Odie Ferrous wrote:

"J. Clarke" wrote:


I fully acknowledge that any form of backup is better than none.

However, I get a lot of drives in that contain backed up data that was
then deleted from the original drive. Slightly different scenario,
admittedly, but it does happen. Especially when the backup device is
housed in an external USB caddy. Plenty of those.

I presume that they were using a single backup drive instead of a set of
them used in rotation?

Of course they weren't! Even "educated" people rarely do this. "It
only happens to other people."

Well, I did read up on backup methods before getting my current backup
solution (MOD, 2 disks are still enough for / and /home).

Guess many "educated" people do not understand computing
and (more seriously) do not understand that they do not understand.
Arrogance combined with ignorance, a deadly combination.

IMO these people get what they deserve.

Arno
--
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