[CLUE-Tech] Tape Drives - why?

[kevin.lane at comcast.net]

> OK, I'm not certain how this answered my question.  You rotate media a lot.
> I get that.  You want to retain data for a long time.  Got that, too.  You
> want to be able to do restores simply and quickly.  Got it.
> 
> What does tape buy you over file-backups to a central, possibly removable
> hard-drive or six?  Does it cost less?  Is it faster, easier to acccess,
> higher overall capacity, or what?
> 
> And what does "EOB" stand for?  Sorry...
> 
> Just to give a general idea why I'm asking this question:  I'm finding that
> tape costs at least 50% more than IDE/ATA disk space, and is slower, and
> requires special software for backups, and is less reliable in terms of I/O,
> and requires the same special software for restores.  So, my thought is:
> big-ass Linux-based RAID + one hot-pluggable sATA / USB 2.0 / FireWire 800 +
> x discs for said hot-pluggable = fast, cheap, reliable backup system.  Seems
> to beat any tape-based system on all points...  Or am I missing something?
> 

Yes, you are missing the off-site storage aspect of tape and backups. Now if you are
not concerned with having off-site storage, then the solution you are proposing is just
fine. But, if you want/need/require the security/safety of off-site storage, then
tapes are the way to go.
    1. More reliable when it comes to being moved around.
    2. Are more "friendly" when it comes to changes in the environment
            (being moved from cold to hot and back to cold when being transported)
    3. Are lighter than Hard Drives, and thus cost less to have moved off-site.

Now, don't get me wrong, I HATE tapes! I've been in many situations where I've
had to restore gigabtyes (sometimes even up to a terabtye) of information from
tape.... it literaly takes days! especially for alot of small files. (more I/O for inodes 
and such). But until a better solution comes along that is as economical as tape
then I think we're stuck with tape for a while....

Kevin Lane


> -----Original Message-----
> From: clue-tech-admin at clue.denver.co.us
> [mailto:clue-tech-admin at clue.denver.co.us] On Behalf Of Richard Mancusi
> Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2004 2:37 PM
> To: clue-tech at clue.denver.co.us
> Subject: Re: [CLUE-Tech] Tape Drives - why?
> 
> This is a very site specific question.  How often are you required to
> restore?
> How quickly are you expected to complete your restore?  How far back is it
> expected that you have retained data onsite and off?
> 
> Offsite storage is very important as an archive - but fairly useless for
> quick recovery unless it is near.
> 
> I am forced to rotate 15 EOD backups AND I rotate a special weekend backup
> offsite for each of my servers.  Call it a bad environment if you wish.
> I call it go with the flow.
> 
> Rich
> 
> 
> On Thu, 29 Jul 2004 13:52:35 -0600, David L. Willson <dlwillson at thegeek.nu>
> wrote:
> > OK, I'm no newbie, and I find myself asking the same damn question 
> > every time I get into the Backup & Disaster Recovery design process.  
> > Why does any business with less than a TB of data to backup use tapes?  
> > Why, why, why, when almost any fixed disk media is much cheaper and 
> > almost as easy to take offsite?
> > 
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