[CentOS] Tape drive recommendations

[Mark Schoonover]

John R Pierce wrote:
> Mark Schoonover wrote:
>> 	Cost is another factor. An Exabyte LTO3 1x7 loader is MSRP $6500,
>> with 20 tapes $1130 in a pack. My 4TB backup server cost just under
>> $5000 at the time, cheaper today. Then, you have the daily admin of
>> flipping tapes. Disks run without intervention once configured, and
>> it's nice to have especially if you have employees working over the
>> weekends, or on holidays. 
>> 
> 
> 
> HP's version of that same LTO3 1/8 autoloader is around $5000 street
> price (sometimes under $4500).      The Quantum OEM version
> ("Superloader") is about the same.
> 
> of course, 20 LTO3 tapes is 16 terabytes.   and you can have another
> 16 terabytes in archive for another $1100 or whatever.      That 1/8
> autoloader holds 8 of them, which is 6.4 terabytes online with no
> operator intervention required until it comes time to ship a box of
> tapes to the offsite vault.
> 

Assuming 2:1 compression will you get 16TB, but with my data, 1.3:1 is more
realistic. Now that you mention it, a similar disk backup system is located
100 miles away in a colo site. Every night I do offsite backups,
automatically. No shipping tapes, or other user intervention.

Tape backups require user intervention everyday. There's no way around it,
especially if you're testing your backups for reliability.

Mark