Thinking of tape backup

philjayj

philjayj

philjayj

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Hi Everyone

I'm thinking of investing in a second-hand tape drive, the thing is, I have no idea which one to use. I have a total of 2TB of data, which is spread over eight 250GB drives.

Not all of this needs to be backed up, but I would like to get as much data on on tape, in the shortest time possible.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Phil

P.S. I forgot to mention I have an Adaptec 29160 SCSI card - not sure if that helps.
 
Hi mate, I'm not too sure about tape backups. The ones we used at work used to be quite pricey but I guess u can get cheaper ones.

Before making a final decision try a cost-comparison against a nas setup with 320gb seagate 7200.10 drives.
 
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How about backing up onto 180K 8.25" floppies? :p
seriously though tape is probably best bet...at least you have SCSI. I've had IDE tape, what a POS slow junk that was.

I would look into DLT, 320GB tapes. Ideally make two copies in case of failure. Looking at £500 for SCSI drive.

Or you could just buy 6 320GB hard drives and 6 hot swop drive cages, and main unit in one or more into tower drive bays.
 
I'm not very good where scsi is concerned, so what drives would you recommend which would work with the scsi card i have?

Thanks
 
Depending on what space you have for backing up, and how much future data you are likely to acumilate, a second rig mirroring the hard drives may be cheaper to build. Just something else to consider, I built a Sugo rig for this very purpose, to store HDD images of my main two rigs.
 
Yewen, thanks for your reply. I like the sound of your suggestion, but what's a Sugo rig? I've never heard of one.

What hardware/software goe's into one etc?

thanks
 
Sugo is a shoe box shaped MATX case. If you want 2TB of storage you'll need a midi tower case.

Basically it's just a PC with cloned data from your other system. Ideally not connected to net for further anti-virus/spyware protection.
 
bbreezeuk2 said:
its far easier and cheaper to set up a raid mirror, or just buy a big hard drive and copy all your info accros to that which is what i do
Click to expand...
I've said it before and I'll say it again

RAID != BACKUP

Multiple backups should be made to media then at least one should be moved off-site to a safe location like a bank safety deposit box or your mother's closet.
 
You can get 2TB into a sugo, and its a small case.

I just use it for disaster recovery on the sense of my main rigs HDD's dying on me, no fire protection or anything unless if was off site.

You could combine the mATX server style computer with a DVD writer for the really really important files, then that way you cover it. Personally all my mp3 files from my CD's are backed up, but not to removeable media as I have the originals, but my holiday snaps are on two hard drives and a CD + DVD and most are on the web aswell.

Depends what you are storing and how critical it is.
 
Yewen said:
Depends what you are storing and how critical it is.
Click to expand...

Quoted for truth.

The level of backup required is fully dependent on the value of the data and the ease of recreating it.

If it's the company accounts, it must be backed up and taken off-site on a daily basis. Companies that lose their accounting data, almost always go out of business.

If it's video and photos of your friends and family, you can't re-create it but its value is of a sentimental nature. Perhaps needs to be backed up monthly and removed off-site.

If it's MP3s and downloaded whatevers, you could re-create it over time and probably doesn't even need backing up.

With modern hard disks getting to 750GB, you could create a 2TB NAS device for around £1K (ex-vat) without too much effort.
 
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