Rodrigo Barbosa <rodrigob at suespammers.org> wrote: > I'm already sold for LTO-3 after this thread. > I just need to find some good supliers. It depends on your network. For a server or two with less than 200GB to go off-site maybe a few times a month, and no more than 12 tapes/year, then LTO-1 is just fine. I didn't realize the drives had dropped to under $1K and the tapes to just over $25. If you have a larger network and want to move several TBs off-site per month -- especially if you're already spending $2-3K just for the on-line backup server with TBs of disk, then definitely add an LTO-3. You'll thank me. ;-> In either case, it's clear that if you're going to do tape, LTO is now the only viable solution. Unless you have legacy AIT, DLT or something else, go LTO -- faster, cheaper, better. > Never used a 1" hard drive, so I can't really comment on > that one. I have a 5GB Seagate CFlash. It's much faster and last a lot longer (write-wise) than a traditional CFlash EEPROM. I always put in a FDD+9-in-1 reader in any system I assemble. > Actually, I was talking about brand/vendors. Like? > Disks are good for (partial or full) HA, not backup. I totally disagree. Fixed disk is _ideal_ for near-line backup. That means the disks stay in one place and they are either always managed, or at least powered regularly. You should _always_ backup from the end-nodes to disk over a network, _never_ directly from end-node to remote tape. You'd do this by sync'ing differences of the end-nodes against the local store of the last backup. I.e., it's an "always diff" backup method. The best near-line disk backup maintains several recent volumes. Tape is _ideal_ for off-line backup. Ideally this means being fed from an near-line disk backup that is local to the tape drive. That way you can drive it 24x7x365, and generate *0* network traffic. And you typically only do an "always full" backup when it comes to off-line tape. In an enterprise environment with a half-dozen plus servers or more, there is little reason to have more than one tape drive. You're money would be better spent on a dedicated on-line/near-line disk backup solution with one tape drive. > Some people call RAID a backup solution, and that is where > mistakes happen. Or even snapshots for that matter. RAID and snapshots are on-line. Fixed disk is near-line. Tape is off-line. In reality, you need _all_ 3. People dismiss tape because they don't realize that it's just _not_ good for near-line. People dismiss disk because they don't realize it's just _not_ good for off-line. The combination is not only necessary, but _complementary_. > For backups, use tapes. For _off-line_ backups, use tape cartridge. For _near-line_ backups, use fixed disk. For _on-line_ backup, at least use RAID, if not snapshots. > I see now your line of thinking, but I don't agree with > your terminology. > Yes, I think tapes and disks are complementary for an > avaliability (contingency, if you will) solution. Fixed disk is ideal for near-line recovery. Fixed disk allows you to do "always differential" network backup. Fixed disk is also ideal for feeding as well as verifying or restoring tape cartridge. Tape is ideal for off-lining data only when you need to. Tape should be an "always full" backup, and _only_ done locally to where the data is at -- _never_ over the network. There is a great symbios between near-line and off-line that people don't see. They get caught up in the fixed disk v. tape -- either people who don't realize that they only hate tape because it sucks at near-line and people who are too focused on disaster recovery from off-line that they fail to see how much better fixed disk is for near-line recovery. > Your solution for a centralized backup server is one I > would recomend too, and have even implemented it on the past. But how? Are you streaming from end-node to end-tape over the network during the limited backup window? Are you at least buffering the process, although that still has some backup window constraints? Or are you only sending diffs to entire stores on fixed disk, and then only sending full backups to tape only when you need to off-line it? -- Bryan J. Smith | Sent from Yahoo Mail mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org | (please excuse any http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ | missing headers)