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How are tapes safer than hard drives? (especially offline hard drives)
Backing up TB's worth of data
- Thread starter Phil2008
- Start date
Tape is the most reliable easily-removable backup medium out there - Tape storage is more energy efficient: Once all the data has been recorded, a tape cartridge simply sits quietly in a draw or cupboard and doesn’t consume any power at all. Tape is also exceedingly reliable, with error rates that are four to five orders of magnitude lower than those of hard drives. And tape is very secure, with built-in, on-the-fly encryption and additional security provided by the nature of the medium itself. After all, if a cartridge isn’t mounted in a drive, the data cannot be accessed or modified. Tapes also can be passed over the heads the drive more then 200+ times and last 15-30years in storage.
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I'm guessing that's just a wiki copy/paste, I did say especially offline hard drives. Which is a drive that sits on a shelf basically.
Yeah thats sure is a bit of copying and pasting..A hard drive can still fail even with it powered off between backing up. Also I dont know if this is true, but apparently the tape heads of the drive doesn't actually touch the tape when reading or writing?
But yeah people think of tape being totally rubbish, I guess because of the cassette and vhs/betamax tapes.
But yeah people think of tape being totally rubbish, I guess because of the cassette and vhs/betamax tapes.
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Associate
Any medium can fail at any time, though a hermetically sealed HD sitting on a shelf, it less likely to fail than a tape sitting on the same shelf.
If you're backing 10's of TB's then maybe tape is useful, below that, I don't see the advantage.
If you're backing 10's of TB's then maybe tape is useful, below that, I don't see the advantage.
I couldn't bring myself to spend £100+ on a decent hard drive for backing up my media drive. It just such a waste, thats why I have only just backed it up recently, because I found a better solution then using hard drives.
Well apparently tape is the safest way to back up on, because unless you throw the tape across the room or the tape breaks inside, not much else can go wrong with a tape. Also the lto tape and drive improves yearly getting faster and larger in capacity, (think you can get 12tb tapes now, but the drives costs like a grand to buy), even though its fading out.
Well apparently tape is the safest way to back up on, because unless you throw the tape across the room or the tape breaks inside, not much else can go wrong with a tape. Also the lto tape and drive improves yearly getting faster and larger in capacity, (think you can get 12tb tapes now, but the drives costs like a grand to buy), even though its fading out.
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Offline HDDs are pretty safe (that's basically all RDX is) but it's still more expensive per GD than tape. I use offline HDDs (mainly for easier access) and then create another copy on tape to archive away. I can also free up lots of space on my NAS by offloading files I don't frequently access but would still like to keep onto a tape cartridge rather than waste another offline HDD which can instead be used for more important files.
I just use spare drives that I have knocking around that I dont use anymore to backup my windows boot drive and games/storage drive. But to buy a expensive hard drive just to backup on,, I just cant do it
I can see that tape would just annoy some people, if you need to access the data frequently as its a slower process then the hard drive. But they are ideal for backing up media server's and stuff like that, that contains a large amount of data and is infrequently accessed. But if you have to spend loads on a tape drive, then it's probably not worth it....Plus you never know if the tape drive will support the next OS you upgrade to... I thought I would have to use winxp/win7 for the SCSI card and tape drive, as I never thought windows 10 would support them for 1 second, but it did
I can see that tape would just annoy some people, if you need to access the data frequently as its a slower process then the hard drive. But they are ideal for backing up media server's and stuff like that, that contains a large amount of data and is infrequently accessed. But if you have to spend loads on a tape drive, then it's probably not worth it....Plus you never know if the tape drive will support the next OS you upgrade to... I thought I would have to use winxp/win7 for the SCSI card and tape drive, as I never thought windows 10 would support them for 1 second, but it did
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Soldato
I just borrow the LTO 6 drive in work for a few hours. 2.5TB raw storage ~4TB realistically with some compressible data. Still £20 a cartridge so a lot more economic on the media front. Hardware cost is the biggy though as the drives are around £5k. Every tape we make in work is done twice and the second copy is stored offsite.
Id love a LTO6 drive but like you say, they are mega money, wonder why they are so expensive? What speed were you getting from the drive, I get about 60-80mb/s from my LTO3? I only go by the uncompressed storage of the tapes because you dont see any compression backing up videos.
I guess when 1 tape holds 2.5tb and only cost £20 per tape, making 2 copies of your data is not a problem
My LTO3tapes holds a pathetic 400gb(800gb compressed) and costs roughly £5-£10 per tape.
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Soldato
IIRC, 170-180MB/s but I believe that is actually limited by the ethernet links and can go faster. The previous LTO 5 drive that we were using was equally as quick. A used LTO 5 drive from Tandberg/Quantum/HP/IBM can be had for £3-400 and the cartridges can store 1.5TB which makes it a more reasonable route for cost/GB/cartridge.Id love a LTO6 drive but like you say, they are mega money, wonder why they are so expensive? What speed were you getting from the drive, I get about 60-80mb/s from my LTO3? I only go by the uncompressed storage of the tapes because you dont see any compression backing up videos.
I guess when 1 tape holds 2.5tb and only cost £20 per tape, making 2 copies of your data is not a problem
Interesting guys,, apparently tape drives are no good for doing incremental backups....... For example,
The slowest an LTO-7 drive can go using LTO-7 media is 79.99MB/s native. Add compression, and you’re at 100-200 MB/s minimum speed and incremental backups are way too slow. Tape drives want to go very fast, the drive has no choice but to stop, rewind, and start up again. It does this over and over, dragging the tape head back and forth across the read write head in multiple passes. This wears out the tape and the drive, and is the number one reason behind tape drive failures in most companies. Tape drives are simply not the right tool for incremental backups. Disk drives are much better suited to the task.
I only run full backups of my data, But I have thought about trying incremental backups as that would speed up my backup time, as It wouldnt need to keep going over whats already been backed up.
But I doubt that applies to me though as I can only get speeds of 60-80mb/s. But saying that my drive does stop every 30secs or so and has to spin up again, so I might have a bottleneck with the SCSI card and/or hard drive not sending the data fast enough to the drive.
Also if incremental are bad for tape drives, you dont want tapes that hold a huge amount of data, not if your having to start the backup from the start of the tape all the time, you want nice small tapes... So I might be blessed with only having a LTO3 drive and I can even use LTO2 tapes and they only hold 200mb of data..
Ummmm interesting, if this is true.
Edit : I have just checked online and the backup speed for my drive is 68mb/s, so thats good, no bottlenecking going on.
The slowest an LTO-7 drive can go using LTO-7 media is 79.99MB/s native. Add compression, and you’re at 100-200 MB/s minimum speed and incremental backups are way too slow. Tape drives want to go very fast, the drive has no choice but to stop, rewind, and start up again. It does this over and over, dragging the tape head back and forth across the read write head in multiple passes. This wears out the tape and the drive, and is the number one reason behind tape drive failures in most companies. Tape drives are simply not the right tool for incremental backups. Disk drives are much better suited to the task.
I only run full backups of my data, But I have thought about trying incremental backups as that would speed up my backup time, as It wouldnt need to keep going over whats already been backed up.
But I doubt that applies to me though as I can only get speeds of 60-80mb/s. But saying that my drive does stop every 30secs or so and has to spin up again, so I might have a bottleneck with the SCSI card and/or hard drive not sending the data fast enough to the drive.
Also if incremental are bad for tape drives, you dont want tapes that hold a huge amount of data, not if your having to start the backup from the start of the tape all the time, you want nice small tapes... So I might be blessed with only having a LTO3 drive and I can even use LTO2 tapes and they only hold 200mb of data..
Ummmm interesting, if this is true.
Edit : I have just checked online and the backup speed for my drive is 68mb/s, so thats good, no bottlenecking going on.
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Just bought an LTO6 drive to backup up my NAS offsite. Should be an interesting journey. Should arrive in a week or so. Decided LT04 would be too much hassle with the data quantity I have, and the tapes are less economic than the higher capacity ones.
Running LTFS, with monolithic full writes to tapes, before storage. Not doing incremental backups, I have a different mechanism for supporting data needing this. Does anyone know how to use hardware based encryption if you're using LTFS?
Running LTFS, with monolithic full writes to tapes, before storage. Not doing incremental backups, I have a different mechanism for supporting data needing this. Does anyone know how to use hardware based encryption if you're using LTFS?
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Caporegime
How much did an lto6 drive set you back?
Thats the problem if you have a lot of data to back up and your using a low spec tape drive.. I have roughly 3.5tb of data backed up, and Im on my 9th LTO3 tape. But it does the job and buying a 400gb tape every few months at about £8 at a time is cheaper then buying hard drives when they get full. I normally buy my tapes in boxes of 5 for about £30-£40 though.
£800. HP 6250, refurbished with a 6 mo warranty. HBA\cables seperate obvs.
Wowsers and Im guessing for brand new your looking at over a grand... These drives must contain high quality components in them, thats all I can say.
I think the latest lto7-lto8 drives cost something like 3grand for new.
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Thats just stupid daft money to spend on something just for backing up your data, If my drive costed anywhere near that, I would make do with hard drives or nothing at all just keep my fingers and toes crossed. £6000 (mega wowsers). I think I'll stick with my £25 LTO3 drive, unless I win the lottery
I think I did well getting a LTO3 drive for £25 and its in very good condition too, I have seen meny drives on ebay in very poor condition and people are asking £25-£40 for them.
Here's a pic of my drive, and Im backing up as we speak. With my Powerwalker UPS underneath, so if the power fails when Im backing up, the UPS will keep everything going for at least 1-2hrs.
I think I did well getting a LTO3 drive for £25 and its in very good condition too, I have seen meny drives on ebay in very poor condition and people are asking £25-£40 for them.
Here's a pic of my drive, and Im backing up as we speak. With my Powerwalker UPS underneath, so if the power fails when Im backing up, the UPS will keep everything going for at least 1-2hrs.
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I don't know why you keep spouting that lto7 is the latest standard. Its not true. Lto8 is already out and tons of drives already on ebay.
Lto3 is a waste of time. Media is too small for this day and age. Wouldnt bother with tape unless going with lto5 minimum.
Lto3 is a waste of time. Media is too small for this day and age. Wouldnt bother with tape unless going with lto5 minimum.