| Author |
Message |
J. Clarke
Guest
|
 Posted:
Wed Jan 19, 2005 4:00 am Post subject:
Re: Tape Backup |
|
|
Paul Rubin wrote:
| Quote: | "J. Clarke" <jclarke@nospam.invalid> writes:
If a compressed, encrypted image is corrupted at all, it's probably
unrecoverable.
But will a virus typically attack any file that is not executable? While
some do, is that the normal action?
The virus might simply try to reformat a hard disk, or scribble on it
at random places. With an uncompressed disk there's some chance of
recovery; with compressed, encrypted disk, it's more likely hopeless.
|
Compressed, encrypted file on a disk. Not a compressed, encrypted disk.
| Quote: | It's actually quite easily done. You pull the board off of your off-site
drive and put it on the dead drive, which generally involves about ten
minutes with a screwdriver.
That's the easy part. The hard part is getting your data back after
you do the board swap. All I can say is, the attempts I've personally
had any contact with have been both expensive and ultimately
unsuccessful. But that's not all that many.
Oh good point, I'm used to regular ATA. Hmm. I wonder if they will
start putting SATA in laptops, with an external SATA connector.
Easily done--SATA PCCard adapters go for about 20 bucks.
Then you have to go through the PC card interface which is slower than
a disk interface, if my experience with an Adaptec 1480 scsi adapter
is any indication.
|
Cardbus is 32 bit 33MHz, just like PCI. And even if it is slower than the
disk interface, no disk on the market can fill even a 100 MB/sec pipe.
| Quote: | Read what I wrote again. I didn't say "use RAID for backup". I said
backup
_to_ the RAID. The step I assumed was obvious was to "then pull both
drives, replace them with the next day's backup set, take one home, leave
the other in the safe".
There is software that does this with tapes. You need two tape drives
and the last time I checked the price the software was a thousand dollar
add-in to a several thousand dollar enterprise backup package.
The equivalent with tape would be to just write two backups, or even
write one backup to two tape drives. That doesn't sound like it needs
a multi-kilobuck software package.
|
If you write two backups then it takes twice as long and since tape is slow
anyway . . .
Now, actually backup to two tapes simultaneously and tell me how you did it
that didn't cost kilobucks.
| Quote: | There's a crossover point on very large systems where a tape library
becomes cost effective. For home use the cost of reliable tape is
prohibitive.
Well, if you really want to use two tape drives, that doubles the
cost, but you can get an LTO1 drive for about $600 now, so two of them
cost about what I paid for my home DDS2 drive in the mid 90's. I'd
say the cost is steep for a typical home user but I'd stop short of
"prohibitive".
|
Where can you get an LTO1 drive for $600 with any kind of reasonable
expectation that it's not busted or stolen?
And no, I don't want to use two tape drives, I want to have backup. I'm not
wedded to one technology like you seem to be. But you've pointed out that
if you do want to have redundant backup with tape you pay twice for the
drives or take twice as long for the backup.
| Quote: | Right now as mentioned, I'm using HD's for backup but I'm not
impressed with their reliability.
Are you using just one disk or are you using a set of them in a rotation
backup like you would with tapes?
I'm using them more like archival tapes, i.e. write-once, no rotation.
|
That's not backup, that's archiving.
| Quote: | I have a number of tape drives. The trouble with them is that disk
capacity is increasing faster than tape capacity, and you need a
state of the art tape to back up a cheap disk.
That describes the situation really well. Right now, disk capacity
increase seems to have stalled,
|
It has? 400 gig disks just started shipping for 400 bucks. Where can I get
a 400 gig tape for 400 bucks?
| Quote: | while tape is making some significant
advances, so for the first time in a while, high-end tape cartridges
hold more than a high-end disk drive's worth of data.
|
They may hold more than a "high-end disk drive" if by that you mean an
enterprise SCSI drive, but they don't hold more than a big consumer disk
drive.
| Quote: | I don't know if
that will last, and those tape systems really are too expensive for
home use (LTO3, SAIT).
And quite honestly, I'd trust disk over DDS. I've had DDS drives eat
multiple tapes.
I think a DDS backup might be more likely to fail at the moment that
it's made and there's always a chance of a drive eating a tape. I
haven't (yet) had bad experiences with tapes going south while sitting
on a shelf, which I've had with disk drives more than once.
On my infinite to-do list is to write some backup software that
uses a RAID-like strategy so if your backup needs, say, 5 tapes,
you can instead write it on (say) 8 tapes, and then if any three
of them get trashed you can still restore from the remaining 5.
|
That's commercially available from several vendors.
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net) |
|
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|
 |
Paul Rubin
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Jan 19, 2005 5:48 am Post subject:
Re: Tape Backup |
|
|
"J. Clarke" <jclarke@nospam.invalid> writes:
| Quote: | The virus might simply try to reformat a hard disk, or scribble on it
at random places. With an uncompressed disk there's some chance of
recovery; with compressed, encrypted disk, it's more likely hopeless.
Compressed, encrypted file on a disk. Not a compressed, encrypted disk.
|
OK, that too. Actually maybe even worse, depending on the type of
encryption and authentication. Change one bit and the whole file is
potentially turned into garbage.
| Quote: | Then you have to go through the PC card interface which is slower than
a disk interface, if my experience with an Adaptec 1480 scsi adapter
is any indication.
Cardbus is 32 bit 33MHz, just like PCI. And even if it is slower than the
disk interface, no disk on the market can fill even a 100 MB/sec pipe.
|
Yes, however, I've gotten crap performance through that Cardbus 1480
card. Maybe something else was wrong that I didn't try to pursue.
Have you actually measured performance of external discs through PC
card SATA?
| Quote: | If you write two backups then it takes twice as long and since tape is slow
anyway . . .
|
Eh? The problem with tape that I'm facing is that it's too fast, not
too slow. LTO1 has around 15MB native transfer speed which a PC disk
system -might- be able to keep up with. LTO2 is around 30MB/sec which
is hard to keep fed. LTO3 ($$$) is almost 70MB/sec. I just don't see
how to back up to LTO3 at full speed from any type of PC.
(Figures from http://www.span.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=21_45).
| Quote: | Now, actually backup to two tapes simultaneously and tell me how you
did it that didn't cost kilobucks.
|
I think the bottleneck would be hardware transfer speeds, not software.
| Quote: | Where can you get an LTO1 drive for $600 with any kind of reasonable
expectation that it's not busted or stolen?
|
There were several new units on ebay for around that price last week.
LTO1/LTO2 have gotten cheaper since LTO3 started shipping recently.
| Quote: | That describes the situation really well. Right now, disk capacity
increase seems to have stalled,
It has? 400 gig disks just started shipping for 400 bucks. Where can I get
a 400 gig tape for 400 bucks?
|
http://www.tape4backup.com/newlookltobrand.html
Scroll down to the LTO3 selection.
| Quote: | while tape is making some significant
advances, so for the first time in a while, high-end tape cartridges
hold more than a high-end disk drive's worth of data.
They may hold more than a "high-end disk drive" if by that you mean an
enterprise SCSI drive, but they don't hold more than a big consumer disk
drive.
|
LTO3 holds 400GB and SAIT-1 holds 500GB. SAIT-2 (scheduled for next
year) is supposed to hold 1000GB and there are no disk drives with
that capacity expected by then.
| Quote: | On my infinite to-do list is to write some backup software that
uses a RAID-like strategy so if your backup needs, say, 5 tapes,
you can instead write it on (say) 8 tapes, and then if any three
of them get trashed you can still restore from the remaining 5.
That's commercially available from several vendors.
|
I only use free software, but it's possible that there's some already
available. |
|
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|
|
J. Clarke
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Jan 19, 2005 8:02 am Post subject:
Re: Tape Backup |
|
|
Paul Rubin wrote:
| Quote: | "J. Clarke" <jclarke@nospam.invalid> writes:
The virus might simply try to reformat a hard disk, or scribble on it
at random places. With an uncompressed disk there's some chance of
recovery; with compressed, encrypted disk, it's more likely hopeless.
Compressed, encrypted file on a disk. Not a compressed, encrypted disk.
OK, that too. Actually maybe even worse, depending on the type of
encryption and authentication. Change one bit and the whole file is
potentially turned into garbage.
Then you have to go through the PC card interface which is slower than
a disk interface, if my experience with an Adaptec 1480 scsi adapter
is any indication.
Cardbus is 32 bit 33MHz, just like PCI. And even if it is slower than
the disk interface, no disk on the market can fill even a 100 MB/sec
pipe.
Yes, however, I've gotten crap performance through that Cardbus 1480
card. Maybe something else was wrong that I didn't try to pursue.
Have you actually measured performance of external discs through PC
card SATA?
|
Haven't measured, but was able to copy 35 gig in about a half an hour using
LiveState Recovery.
| Quote: | If you write two backups then it takes twice as long and since tape is
slow anyway . . .
Eh? The problem with tape that I'm facing is that it's too fast, not
too slow. LTO1 has around 15MB native transfer speed which a PC disk
system -might- be able to keep up with. LTO2 is around 30MB/sec which
is hard to keep fed. LTO3 ($$$) is almost 70MB/sec. I just don't see
how to back up to LTO3 at full speed from any type of PC.
|
RAID.
Believe it when you see it. The performance of _anything_ is inflated in
the advertising.
| Quote: | Now, actually backup to two tapes simultaneously and tell me how you
did it that didn't cost kilobucks.
I think the bottleneck would be hardware transfer speeds, not software.
|
Regardless of where the bottleneck is you need to have software which will
write the same data to two tapes simultaneously in order to backup to two
drives simultaneously.
| Quote: | Where can you get an LTO1 drive for $600 with any kind of reasonable
expectation that it's not busted or stolen?
There were several new units on ebay for around that price last week.
|
Is that the price they finally went for or the starting price? Lowest ebay
price I've seen is a bit less than the lowest Froogle price but that
auction still had some time to go. And they're still in the $800 range.
| Quote: | LTO1/LTO2 have gotten cheaper since LTO3 started shipping recently.
That describes the situation really well. Right now, disk capacity
increase seems to have stalled,
It has? 400 gig disks just started shipping for 400 bucks. Where can I
get a 400 gig tape for 400 bucks?
http://www.tape4backup.com/newlookltobrand.html
Scroll down to the LTO3 selection.
|
And what am I supposed to see there? I'm sorry, but a $130 cartridge and a
$5000 tape drive is not 400 gig for 400 bucks, it's 400 gig for 5130 bucks.
| Quote: | while tape is making some significant
advances, so for the first time in a while, high-end tape cartridges
hold more than a high-end disk drive's worth of data.
They may hold more than a "high-end disk drive" if by that you mean an
enterprise SCSI drive, but they don't hold more than a big consumer disk
drive.
LTO3 holds 400GB and SAIT-1 holds 500GB. SAIT-2 (scheduled for next
year) is supposed to hold 1000GB and there are no disk drives with
that capacity expected by then.
|
What's expected and what happens are two different things. Regardless,
that's a $6K drive and if the only vendor is Sony then I'd rather trust my
data to a shredder thank you.
| Quote: | On my infinite to-do list is to write some backup software that
uses a RAID-like strategy so if your backup needs, say, 5 tapes,
you can instead write it on (say) 8 tapes, and then if any three
of them get trashed you can still restore from the remaining 5.
That's commercially available from several vendors.
I only use free software, but it's possible that there's some already
available.
|
So far you have convinced me of nothing. Perhaps if you weren't buying
$6000 tape drives you could afford some software.
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net) |
|
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|
|
Paul Rubin
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Jan 19, 2005 8:02 am Post subject:
Re: Tape Backup |
|
|
"J. Clarke" <jclarke@nospam.invalid> writes:
| Quote: | I think the bottleneck would be hardware transfer speeds, not software.
Regardless of where the bottleneck is you need to have software which will
write the same data to two tapes simultaneously in order to backup to two
drives simultaneously.
|
I just don't see any multi-kilobucks of software needed for that. I
could probably hack up GNU Tar to do it pretty straightforwardly.
| Quote: | There were several new units on ebay for around that price last week.
Is that the price they finally went for or the starting price? Lowest ebay
price I've seen is a bit less than the lowest Froogle price but that
auction still had some time to go. And they're still in the $800 range.
|
There were a few at $600 or so if you clicked "Buy It Now". Someone
may have snagged them all. I was surprised they were that low and
even $800 is pretty good. Just a few months ago I'd been seeing them
in the $1300 range but now you can get brand new Certance LTO2 drives
for $1700-ish from dealers.
| Quote: | And what am I supposed to see there? I'm sorry, but a $130 cartridge and a
$5000 tape drive is not 400 gig for 400 bucks, it's 400 gig for 5130 bucks.
|
We were discussing the media cost. Yes, the tape drive adds a lot.
LTO3 is way out of my price range for example. LTO2 is more than I
want to spend but not outside the realm of possibility if I can think
of a use for that much capacity. LTO1 even at $800 looks pretty
attractive, a much more serious medium than using a bunch of those
consumer hard drives.
| Quote: | I only use free software, but it's possible that there's some
already available.
So far you have convinced me of nothing. Perhaps if you weren't buying
$6000 tape drives you could afford some software.
|
There's absolutely no way I'm going to trust backups or security
(encryption) to software (or at least data layouts) that I don't have
source for and hasn't been publicly reviewed. I won't have my data
hostage to some software company. No amount of money in the world
(well...) could get me to run non-free software for stuff like this. |
|
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|
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Al Dykes
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Jan 19, 2005 6:54 pm Post subject:
Re: Tape Backup |
|
|
In article <7x8y6poq15.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com>,
Paul Rubin <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote:
| Quote: | "J. Clarke" <jclarke@nospam.invalid> writes:
I think the bottleneck would be hardware transfer speeds, not software.
Regardless of where the bottleneck is you need to have software which will
write the same data to two tapes simultaneously in order to backup to two
drives simultaneously.
I just don't see any multi-kilobucks of software needed for that. I
could probably hack up GNU Tar to do it pretty straightforwardly.
There were several new units on ebay for around that price last week.
Is that the price they finally went for or the starting price? Lowest ebay
price I've seen is a bit less than the lowest Froogle price but that
auction still had some time to go. And they're still in the $800 range.
There were a few at $600 or so if you clicked "Buy It Now". Someone
may have snagged them all. I was surprised they were that low and
even $800 is pretty good. Just a few months ago I'd been seeing them
in the $1300 range but now you can get brand new Certance LTO2 drives
for $1700-ish from dealers.
And what am I supposed to see there? I'm sorry, but a $130 cartridge and a
$5000 tape drive is not 400 gig for 400 bucks, it's 400 gig for 5130 bucks.
We were discussing the media cost. Yes, the tape drive adds a lot.
LTO3 is way out of my price range for example. LTO2 is more than I
want to spend but not outside the realm of possibility if I can think
of a use for that much capacity. LTO1 even at $800 looks pretty
attractive, a much more serious medium than using a bunch of those
consumer hard drives.
|
I've bought a couple hundered LT IV carts on ebay, a few at a time and
saved the little company I worked for at least 50% of street price.
At some point I realized that the name brand tapes (mostly FUJI) had a
lifetime no-questions-asked replacement warranty. That made buying
tapes a no-brainer, since I could even buy a broken tape and
eventually get a new tape for it. I also had Veritas backup software
that reported tape soft error rates, so I could see weak tapes
and cycle them out of the heavy rotations.
I use ebauy to by tapes that are listed as being unopened,
without hesitation.
OT: I forget how much data teh OP backs up. I'd look at DLT IV tape
(35GB/70 compressed) would be cheaper for the OP. Lots of drives and
tapes on Ebay.
DLT is so heavily used in business that you'll be able to get tapes,
and drives for a years, and 50 years from now I bet there will be some
data conversion companies that will read your tape if you should need
it.
--
a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m
Don't blame me. I voted for Gore. |
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|
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J. Clarke
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Jan 19, 2005 7:59 pm Post subject:
Re: Tape Backup |
|
|
Paul Rubin wrote:
| Quote: | "J. Clarke" <jclarke@nospam.invalid> writes:
I think the bottleneck would be hardware transfer speeds, not software.
Regardless of where the bottleneck is you need to have software which
will write the same data to two tapes simultaneously in order to backup
to two drives simultaneously.
I just don't see any multi-kilobucks of software needed for that. I
could probably hack up GNU Tar to do it pretty straightforwardly.
|
Now use that to back up a Windows box.
| Quote: | There were several new units on ebay for around that price last week.
Is that the price they finally went for or the starting price? Lowest
ebay price I've seen is a bit less than the lowest Froogle price but that
auction still had some time to go. And they're still in the $800 range.
There were a few at $600 or so if you clicked "Buy It Now". Someone
may have snagged them all. I was surprised they were that low and
even $800 is pretty good. Just a few months ago I'd been seeing them
in the $1300 range but now you can get brand new Certance LTO2 drives
for $1700-ish from dealers.
And what am I supposed to see there? I'm sorry, but a $130 cartridge and
a $5000 tape drive is not 400 gig for 400 bucks, it's 400 gig for 5130
bucks.
We were discussing the media cost.
|
Perhaps you were discussing the media cost. I was discussion the cost of
obtaining a backup. The media does you no good at all without the drive.
| Quote: | Yes, the tape drive adds a lot.
LTO3 is way out of my price range for example. LTO2 is more than I
want to spend but not outside the realm of possibility if I can think
of a use for that much capacity. LTO1 even at $800 looks pretty
attractive, a much more serious medium than using a bunch of those
consumer hard drives.
|
It may be a more "serious" medium, but does it really confer any advantage
when used as a backup device? Not an archiving device, a _backup_ device?
| Quote: | I only use free software, but it's possible that there's some
already available.
So far you have convinced me of nothing. Perhaps if you weren't buying
$6000 tape drives you could afford some software.
There's absolutely no way I'm going to trust backups or security
(encryption) to software (or at least data layouts) that I don't have
source for and hasn't been publicly reviewed. I won't have my data
hostage to some software company. No amount of money in the world
(well...) could get me to run non-free software for stuff like this.
|
Suit yourself. Personally I've got better uses for 6 grand than backing up
my video collection.
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net) |
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| Back to top |
|
|
J. Clarke
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Jan 19, 2005 8:02 pm Post subject:
Re: Tape Backup |
|
|
Al Dykes wrote:
| Quote: | In article <7x8y6poq15.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com>,
Paul Rubin <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote:
"J. Clarke" <jclarke@nospam.invalid> writes:
I think the bottleneck would be hardware transfer speeds, not
software.
Regardless of where the bottleneck is you need to have software which
will write the same data to two tapes simultaneously in order to backup
to two drives simultaneously.
I just don't see any multi-kilobucks of software needed for that. I
could probably hack up GNU Tar to do it pretty straightforwardly.
There were several new units on ebay for around that price last week.
Is that the price they finally went for or the starting price? Lowest
ebay price I've seen is a bit less than the lowest Froogle price but
that
auction still had some time to go. And they're still in the $800 range.
There were a few at $600 or so if you clicked "Buy It Now". Someone
may have snagged them all. I was surprised they were that low and
even $800 is pretty good. Just a few months ago I'd been seeing them
in the $1300 range but now you can get brand new Certance LTO2 drives
for $1700-ish from dealers.
And what am I supposed to see there? I'm sorry, but a $130 cartridge
and a $5000 tape drive is not 400 gig for 400 bucks, it's 400 gig for
5130 bucks.
We were discussing the media cost. Yes, the tape drive adds a lot.
LTO3 is way out of my price range for example. LTO2 is more than I
want to spend but not outside the realm of possibility if I can think
of a use for that much capacity. LTO1 even at $800 looks pretty
attractive, a much more serious medium than using a bunch of those
consumer hard drives.
I've bought a couple hundered LT IV carts on ebay, a few at a time and
saved the little company I worked for at least 50% of street price.
At some point I realized that the name brand tapes (mostly FUJI) had a
lifetime no-questions-asked replacement warranty. That made buying
tapes a no-brainer, since I could even buy a broken tape and
eventually get a new tape for it. I also had Veritas backup software
that reported tape soft error rates, so I could see weak tapes
and cycle them out of the heavy rotations.
I use ebauy to by tapes that are listed as being unopened,
without hesitation.
OT: I forget how much data teh OP backs up. I'd look at DLT IV tape
(35GB/70 compressed) would be cheaper for the OP. Lots of drives and
tapes on Ebay.
DLT is so heavily used in business that you'll be able to get tapes,
and drives for a years, and 50 years from now I bet there will be some
data conversion companies that will read your tape if you should need
it.
|
Why would one want to read a 50 year old backup? Or are you confusing
"archive" and "backup"?
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net) |
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David Magda
Guest
|
| Posted:
Thu Jan 20, 2005 9:28 pm Post subject:
Re: Tape Backup |
|
|
Arno Wagner <me@privacy.net> writes:
| Quote: | If you don't drop or overheat them, HDD reliability if fine for
regular backups. (Backup != long-term storage.)
|
We recently got a new array with ATA disks which is relatively
'cheap'. We're planning on doing a backup to disk, and then make
copies of the backup images to tape (one tape onsite, another tape
offsite).
Our backups will be faster, but we'll also have stuff 'offline' in
case the disks get fried.
| Quote: | I agree that DVD+/-R(W) is unclear at the moment. However the
German computer magazine c't does regular tests of burner/medium
combinations and has burned disks evaluated with professional
|
It's also harder to automate if media is too smal. And if it's not
automated, it's less likely to get done.
--
David Magda <dmagda at ee.ryerson.ca>, http://www.magda.ca/
Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under
the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well
under the new. -- Niccolo Machiavelli, _The Prince_, Chapter VI |
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David Magda
Guest
|
| Posted:
Thu Jan 20, 2005 9:33 pm Post subject:
Re: Tape Backup |
|
|
Paul J. Hurley <hurleyp@NoSpam.caliban.com> writes:
| Quote: | Has anyone here tried any of the online backup solutions offered by
some ISP's? Essentially you pay a monthly fee for a block of
storage (500MB, 1GB, 2GB, 5GB, whatever) on a server located
|
Can't this be done with any type of web account? Simply FTP the files
over. Heck, under Linux you can treat your Gmail account as a file
system.
--
David Magda <dmagda at ee.ryerson.ca>, http://www.magda.ca/
Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under
the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well
under the new. -- Niccolo Machiavelli, _The Prince_, Chapter VI |
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David Magda
Guest
|
| Posted:
Thu Jan 20, 2005 9:48 pm Post subject:
Re: Tape Backup |
|
|
adykes@panix.com (Al Dykes) writes:
| Quote: | The daily upload would be _really_ slow on an adsl line, but some
smart software that only sent modofied files would make the best of
things (or someting that works in background.
|
Rsync? Or the multiplatform Unison (not the Usenet reader).
--
David Magda <dmagda at ee.ryerson.ca>, http://www.magda.ca/
Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under
the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well
under the new. -- Niccolo Machiavelli, _The Prince_, Chapter VI |
|
| Back to top |
|
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David Magda
Guest
|
| Posted:
Thu Jan 20, 2005 9:50 pm Post subject:
Re: Tape Backup |
|
|
Brian K <brianxt1951@earthlink.net> writes:
| Quote: | How fortunate for you that your personal finances permit you to see
"just under $800." as affordable. I am not quite sure that the OP
would agree. I certainly don't. Affordable to me is $200. and
that's why I am now looking at external HDD.
|
And how much is recreating all the data you lost worth to you?
--
David Magda <dmagda at ee.ryerson.ca>, http://www.magda.ca/
Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under
the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well
under the new. -- Niccolo Machiavelli, _The Prince_, Chapter VI |
|
| Back to top |
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J. Clarke
Guest
|
| Posted:
Thu Jan 20, 2005 10:58 pm Post subject:
Re: Tape Backup |
|
|
David Magda wrote:
| Quote: | Brian K <brianxt1951@earthlink.net> writes:
How fortunate for you that your personal finances permit you to see
"just under $800." as affordable. I am not quite sure that the OP
would agree. I certainly don't. Affordable to me is $200. and
that's why I am now looking at external HDD.
And how much is recreating all the data you lost worth to you?
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If he's a typical home user then "recreating all the data you lost" counts
as either recreation or good riddance, depending on whether it was his or
his kid's MP3 collection that went.
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net) |
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Arno Wagner
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Jan 21, 2005 12:53 am Post subject:
Re: Tape Backup |
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In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage David Magda <dmagda+trace050112@ee.ryerson.ca> wrote:
| Quote: | Arno Wagner <me@privacy.net> writes:
If you don't drop or overheat them, HDD reliability if fine for
regular backups. (Backup != long-term storage.)
We recently got a new array with ATA disks which is relatively
'cheap'. We're planning on doing a backup to disk, and then make
copies of the backup images to tape (one tape onsite, another tape
offsite).
Our backups will be faster, but we'll also have stuff 'offline' in
case the disks get fried.
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Good idea. This is really just "persistent buffering", a quite old
technology, e.g. implemented in many tape-library storage systems.
But please use at least 3 independent sets of tapes with this too
and verify the readability of your tapes at regular intervals.
| Quote: | I agree that DVD+/-R(W) is unclear at the moment. However the
German computer magazine c't does regular tests of burner/medium
combinations and has burned disks evaluated with professional
It's also harder to automate if media is too smal. And if it's not
automated, it's less likely to get done.
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Also a very good point.
Arno
--
For email address: lastname AT tik DOT ee DOT ethz DOT ch
GnuPG: ID:1E25338F FP:0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws" - Tacitus |
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Arno Wagner
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Jan 21, 2005 12:55 am Post subject:
Re: Tape Backup |
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In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage David Magda <dmagda+trace050112@ee.ryerson.ca> wrote:
| Quote: | Paul J. Hurley <hurleyp@NoSpam.caliban.com> writes:
Has anyone here tried any of the online backup solutions offered by
some ISP's? Essentially you pay a monthly fee for a block of
storage (500MB, 1GB, 2GB, 5GB, whatever) on a server located
Can't this be done with any type of web account? Simply FTP the files
over. Heck, under Linux you can treat your Gmail account as a file
system.
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Yes, that is one really cool application! I guess Google did not
quite antocipate that ;-)
Arno
--
For email address: lastname AT tik DOT ee DOT ethz DOT ch
GnuPG: ID:1E25338F FP:0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws" - Tacitus |
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Richard Tobin
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Jan 21, 2005 4:46 am Post subject:
Re: Tape Backup |
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In article <86wtu8vyd0.fsf@number6.magda.ca>,
David Magda <dmagda+trace050112@ee.ryerson.ca> wrote:
| Quote: | And how much is recreating all the data you lost worth to you?
|
That's not a realistic question for most people in their private
lives. I know many people who would spend hours fixing something
rather than paying someone 30 pounds to do it, but would not consider
doing the work for someone else for, say, 100 pounds.
For most people, time spent outside their job and money are just not
interconvertible.
-- Richard |
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