Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 07:28:10 -0400 From: David Gilbert <dgilbert@dclg.ca> To: jasondic@sbcglobal.net Cc: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Recommendations for Tape Drives? Message-ID: <16216.29514.525065.112490@canoe.velocet.net> In-Reply-To: <200309040801.51727.jasondic@sbcglobal.net> References: <000001c372e9$8faef460$2600a8c6@cromedome> <200309040801.51727.jasondic@sbcglobal.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
>>>>> "jasondic" == jasondic <jasondic@sbcglobal.net> writes: jasondic> On Thursday 04 September 2003 06:36, Jason A. Crome wrote: >> and will be in need of a quality backup solution. Which tape >> drives, in your experience, play nicely with FreeBSD, and what >> software would you recommend to go with it? I agree with other sentiments expressed here: low cost tape solutions have never materialized. If you look at the various systems, the tape media (just the media, not the drive) often costs more than the disk it backs up. Considering that a 120G disk just cost me $150 (Canadian $'s) ... and good 100G backup tapes are more than that... your cheapest backup solution is to rotate IDE drives on a schedule. My current home backup plan uses snapshots for short-term "oops I deleted something" backups and an older tape drive for which someone else paid for the tapes for a small amount (10G) of more important files. For the office, I'm very seriously considering building a RAID-10 with 3 plexes (in vinum parlance). You can still use snapshots for short term backups... but for longer term backups (and disaster recovery) you break off the third plex each day and send it offsite. With 3 or 4 spare plexes, you've got a reasonable duration off backups... and freebsd's ATA code will handle this all (attaching and detaching drives) just fine. After breaking off the third plex, of course, you add a new one back. You can do this with only two plexes if you like to live more dangerously. Now... please take note: non-spinning hard drives are _not_ a long term storage solution. You must fully realize that you're doing a cheap backup solution when you do this because you're not including archiving in your plans. non-spinning hard drives are unlikely be be readable in a very short number of years (compared to tapes). Dave. -- ============================================================================ |David Gilbert, Independent Contractor. | Two things can only be | |Mail: dave@daveg.ca | equal if and only if they | |http://daveg.ca | are precisely opposite. | =========================================================GLO================
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?16216.29514.525065.112490>