Off Site Backups - tape or HDD?

Haggisman

Haggisman

Haggisman

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Location
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So having recently taken over the position of IT everything in a medium sized business, I've been tasked with implementing an offsite backup solution, since my predecessor didn't have one in place.

Our current backups take ~4TB, however chances are this is going to increase, also, our internet upload speed is ~1.3Mb, so those factors pretty much rule out online backups.

I've been looking at a couple of solutions involving both removable HDDs (USB3) or LTO4 tapes (SAS), but I will confess I'm struggling to decide which is best.

So far the systems I've been looking at are:

Buffalo Drivestation Quad USB3,
8x 2TB HDD (2 sets of 4 to be rotated weekly)
- Approx total cost £850-900

or

Quantum SuperLoader 3 LTO-4HH tape drive
10x LTO4 Ultrium 800GB/1.6TB tape cartridge
Cleaning cartridge
PCIe SAS card
SAS cable
- Approx total cost £2700

I'm leaning towards HDD myself, purely based on ease of use and cost, but suppliers who have been giving me quotes so far have been insisting tape is far better - however I'm somewhat suspicious that they are slightly biased based on cost ;)

Just wanted some independent recommendations or ideas really - or if anyone has been in a similar position and what system they put in place?

Many thanks :)
 
ruffneck said:
We use a Disk to Disk to Tape solution, which envolves an array of disks attached to our backup server, backup exec runs every night, pulls all the data to the disk array, as soon as the job finishes a duplicate job runs which then backs up from the array to an LTO4 tape library for offsite storage.

Works well.
Click to expand...

This is similar to what I'm looking at - currently backup exec pulls everything to a NAS. My concern is the offsite part :)

#Chri5#, that's a good point about transportation and a major point I'll have to consider, I know that tapes are a lot more robust - I guess my main concern at this point is the cost!

Jay794 - it's very likely if the building catches fire :p

Thanks for the replies guys, I'll do a bit more digging around the tape side. :)
 
Sorry for slow reply - no net at home and has been a busy morning!

Looking at tape libraries now, will have to do a somewhat persuasive report to justify the cost, but I guess asking the question "what's the data worth to the company?" will go a long way to winning them over (thanks Mr Plow :p). We're an IT development company with quite a bit of customer data on site, so if that's lost we're a little screwed!

The library I've been quoted for is Quantum - are these any good? Or should I be looking at something from one of the bigger providers e.g. Dell, HP, IBM etc?

There's already a company that provides secure storage who visit the business park we're on, so that side of it is covered :) (ACS based in Birmingham if anyone knows them?)
 
#Chri5# said:
Does your business insurance policy have any specific requirements for having off-site backups?

From memory, the only companies which actually make LTO hardware are HP, Quantum, IBM and Tandberg.
Click to expand...

Having spoken to the FD - no, our insurance doesn't stipulate any particular requirements.

I've now specced up a couple of Quantum units, both an LTO4 and LTO5. Both 8 slot units, there's about an £800 price difference when interface cards and tapes are included (the LTO5 being more expensive).

However the LTO 5 has the advantage of being ~1.5hrs quicker (at the quoted speed, obviously in real use this will be slower) and needing only 4 tapes (2 compressed) to do the full backup, as opposed to 7 (4 compressed) on the LTO4. I'm leaning towards the LTO5, as it's obviously going to be more future-proof, and leave room for expansion, any ideas/feedback?
 
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