Need feedback on The PowerVault RD1000 backup from Dell

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Spartacus

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The PowerVault™ RD1000 Internal Serial ATA Disk Drive from Dell™

Anybody using this backup system?

If so, are the (expensive) cartridges reliable?

I am looking at this as a backup solution to replace a DLT drive.
Backup job is around 110GB every night.

Any feedback on this appreciated.
 
I have several customers that use the USB version. The cartridges are basically a laptop SATA drive in a case. As for reliability, they are as reliable as any HD. I haven't had any problems with them. The USB version isn't the fastest, but that's to be expected. For a SMB solution, they work pretty well.
 
We just started using the USB version this week and have no issues. As the other poster said, its not the fastes but its not slow. The cartridges are pretty big, but both the unit and the cartridges seem to be very rugged and durable.
 
i have been thinking of picking up the usb one as well. will have to see. tapes seem mad expensive, anyone find a cheap place?
 
I installed one of these a while back for a client, it was the usb edition, and had no issues with it. I'd recommend it.
 
MorfiusX said:
The cartridges are basically a laptop SATA drive in a case.
Click to expand...

I know, that was why I asked about reliability. :)

I'm thinking of getting the internal drive to swap with the internal DLT drive. That would be faster, but then I'd lose the flexibility/portability of the USB drive. Maybe that's a good thing though, I don't want people wandering around the office with it.

Good to hear it's not junk.
 
im also interested in this, particularly in use with a hp server running sbs2003, and using the built-in backup tool.

edit: i assume it just appears as a removable drive?
 
I love them...I've been using them on the majority of my new server install for over a year, and replacing older tape drives with them. Prior to these...for smaller jobs, I've been using the Iomega REV drives.

I use the internal ones...with SATA..I won't touch USB for servers. Too much CPU utilization and too slow, and the possibility of falling offline when under load. I wish they'd come out with a SCSI one..but for now SATA has been working great....I just use a Belkin SATA controller card if there are no onboard connectors on the servers mobo.

Fast...very very fast. Durable cartridges..basically a 2.5" laptop hard drive..in a hot swap bay.

I setup SBS backup to backup to the UNC path...\\servername\vault for example.
 
right around the same time these came out i started making my own of these... there are parts available on newegg (+ microcenter) to do just that... in some places i set up 2 for incrementals... i've been sayin... hard drive backup... i havn't messed with tapes in years... when one of my clients has one i let them go with it, they have it under control i'm not going to touch it... unless i have to get something off of it... and usually when that happens its something they never thought to back up (NTDS.DIT) and i've NEVER come across a client of mine who was confident in thier tape backup
 
Jury's still out for me on these. The unit's are cheap enough- but the cartidges are big $$$. To set up a true 5 or 10 tape rotation means a giant investment in media. Sure- you could just buy 2 or 3 and rotate them I guess. Speed is good, compared to DLT, but not compared to LTO-2L. I see Dell's site does not differentiate between USB2 and SATA for throughput- are they actually the same? I have a client who put one of these in- small place with a new Precision workstation w/XP as a "server". USB 2.0, and I just checked this morning- real world performance has been avg'g 1,000MB/Min, 60.5 GB/hr. They are rated at 30 MB/s; 108GB/hr. Not happening. Anybody have some SATA results?

On the other hand, have a bunch of LTO-2-L's out there, SCSI of course. Checked on this morning- actual is 1,376 MB/min, 82.56 GB/hr. A new LTO-2-L drive is between $1000-1500, depending on the sale of the day- today it happens to be $929 :eek: . Tapes cost around $35.00 ea. That means a new drive and 5 tapes = $1,096. An RD1000 costs $299, and 120-240 cartidges are $199.99 ea. So an RD1000 w/5 media = $1,298 .

Who knows yet about MTBF.... they haven't been around long enough- but have to assume it's OK as they are just a hard drive.

I guess for very small applications, you could get 3 of the smaller cartidges, in a bundled deal, and save some money. But for you- if you already have 110GB of data, you KNOW that will grow quickly. The higher capacity RD catridges are HUGE money.

I think I'll stick with tape for now.
 
I'm not sure about MTBF.......but some points I considered good.
*No tape cleaner necessary
*No need to purchase a whole new set of tapes each year...it's a hard drive..should last at least 3 years with endless read/writes.( I haven't taken one apart to see what brand/line of laptop SATA drives they use...but I'll assume mid-range..so 3 year warranty models. So longer term costs...this can help.

I'll bench some SATA rates. But I've just done some "glancing at" comparisons...where I replaced a tape backup (DAT) with an RD1000...and seen backup jobs drop from 4 hours to 1 hour. For 1x client...the owner of the co likes to do an EOM backup himself..while standing there after hours. So this was a big + for him.
 
Another point: No tape seek time on restores. Not a deal breaker, but nice to have.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
I'm not sure about MTBF.......but some points I considered good.
*No tape cleaner necessary
*No need to purchase a whole new set of tapes each year...it's a hard drive..should last at least 3 years with endless read/writes.( I haven't taken one apart to see what brand/line of laptop SATA drives they use...but I'll assume mid-range..so 3 year warranty models. So longer term costs...this can help.

I'll bench some SATA rates. But I've just done some "glancing at" comparisons...where I replaced a tape backup (DAT) with an RD1000...and seen backup jobs drop from 4 hours to 1 hour. For 1x client...the owner of the co likes to do an EOM backup himself..while standing there after hours. So this was a big + for him.
Click to expand...

No need to replace LTO's every year either really. BU Exec reports read write errors for you, and you can make that determination. NT backup doesn't analyze this either, so if you were using this then yes- I guess I'd err on the side of caution too. Wondering if the HDs error check?? Don't know. True about the cleaning tapes- good point.

As far as comparing to DAT... OMG. Anything on the planet would be better than DAT for sure. They are truly pathetic. A DAT is only rated at 12.6GB/hr. Lame. And they're also only good for 36GB native. Their day has truly come and gone, if it was ever there in the first place. DAT/DDS is what gave tapes a bad rep in the first place. DLT even from its first itterations was much more relaible. And as far as reliability- you bet- I'd be replacing DAT tapes every year if I were using them too. Very low MTBF.

Yeah- I'd be curious to see their transfer rates on some real jobs.
 
in some cases it is a deal breaker....

MTBF may be lower than a tape, but you'll know it when it fails... and it goes back to keeping one drive out of the system in case of a catastrophic failure (same thing you SHOULD be doing with tapes) ... what are the chances that your backup media (in this case a sata laptop hd) will die at the same time your array does? or if its just a backup for accidental deletions and overwrites... thats why you keep 2...



EDIT: and another thing, its probably a lot cheaper to get data recovered from a dead laptop HD than a tape... and definitely cheaper than getting data recovered from a raid array (unless its raid1 :p)
 
goodcooper said:
in some cases it is a deal breaker....

MTBF may be lower than a tape, but you'll know it when it fails... and it goes back to keeping one drive out of the system in case of a catastrophic failure (same thing you SHOULD be doing with tapes) ... what are the chances that your backup media (in this case a sata laptop hd) will die at the same time your array does? or if its just a backup for accidental deletions and overwrites... thats why you keep 2...
Click to expand...

You really should have more than 2 in any scenario. By rights, you should have a true rotation set up, keeping media offsite. You should never leave any media in day after day- little point in that. Offsite media storage is key to any backup, whether you use the RD's, tape, CD's, or thumb drives. They are all completely worthless as they melt in a drawer during a fire. It's funny- I've done a couple EMR setups at medical centers this year, and as I frequent user forums for the software I enjoy reading the logic of the micro-managing physicians, or the wanna-be IT secretary and how they consider things like VSS to other servers, or other on-site based server replication to be a backup solution. They are only a piece of the pie. Multiple sytems are great- the best scenario. But all must include off-site storage of the media. How many places do you go into that have all the tapes in a box by the server? (and it's their only method of B/U) Cracks me up.
 
twwabw said:
As far as comparing to DAT... OMG. Anything on the planet would be better than DAT for sure. They are truly pathetic. A DAT is only rated at 12.6GB/hr. Lame. And they're also only good for 36GB native. .
Click to expand...

Agreed..absolutely horrible invention. Never saw a backup device with such a high rate of failure.

Doing a new PE2900 III install up sorta your way in a few weeks....dual Xeon quad core box..having the internal SATA RD1000, I'll see what she transfers at.
 
goodcooper said:
or if its just a backup for accidental deletions and overwrites... thats why you keep 2...

EDIT: and another thing, its probably a lot cheaper to get data recovered from a dead laptop HD than a tape... and definitely cheaper than getting data recovered from a raid array (unless its raid1 :p)
Click to expand...

Well, RAID is not a backup solution- it is a redundancy solution. I cringe when I hear anyone say they're all set w/backups 'cause they have a raid array (of any kind). If you're looking for quick recovery for accidental file deletes, you should be running VSS enabled on your server anyway. Fast, free recovery. Backups should be for disaster recovery- hardware failure, fire, theft. At that point, cost of the recovery is not going to be skewed by the media you use IMO. The time spent in recovery using one form or another is irrelevant.
 
twwabw said:
Well, RAID is not a backup solution- it is a redundancy solution. I cringe when I hear anyone say they're all set w/backups 'cause they have a raid array (of any kind). If you're looking for quick recovery for accidental file deletes, you should be running VSS enabled on your server anyway. Fast, free recovery. Backups should be for disaster recovery- hardware failure, fire, theft. At that point, cost of the recovery is not going to be skewed by the media you use IMO. The time spent in recovery using one form or another is irrelevant.
Click to expand...

yea i meant if it were to fail simultaneously... as in a dead hard drive backup solution still has data on the platters even if it is inaccessible without being disassembled
 
goodcooper said:
yea i meant if it were to fail simultaneously... as in a dead hard drive backup solution still has data on the platters even if it is inaccessible without being disassembled
Click to expand...

It's removable media..which is what's important. Rotating. If it's tape, or some sort of removable disk or other media cartridge..what's important..is that you have removable media..and that there's some sort of rotation of a copy being taken off site at regular intervals.

For my clients..it's a full backup every weekday night. That gives you at least 5x tapes. Many clients I've done multiple backups..they have their full backup on removable media..and they do an internet based backup of their critical data through us.

The chances of removable media of whatever type getting corrupted or unreadable? Yeah..it can happen. A removable disk can be corrupted just like any other hard drive. Drop it a few times...or the secretary that does the backup rotation and is responsible for taking a tape out of the office each night or on Fridays...tosses the tape in her purse...right next to her CELLPHONE! :rolleyes: Yeah...lets see how many times the tape will tolerate being next to that. But it can happen.

Can stuff happen simultaneously? Yeah...technically you can come up with a scenario where no matter how redundant you are...it can all get tanked. Think about the disaster in New Orleans..the flooding. Business office gets flooded..so the server gets hosed. Any backup media kept in the office also gets hosed. But...they were fairly good..and had a staff member take a backup media "offsite" once a week. But they also lived where it got flooded...so that office backup got hosed too. But..they wanted triple protection....and did an internet based backup solution...with a data center which was also in the city of New Orleans..and that got flooded.

Yeah you can be creative and come up with a method to hose multiple redundant systems...but it's still smart to employ several layers to beat the odds.
 
Love the remote back up stuff- great isn't it? I'm using a couple remote services at a few small clients- great solution. And using combination of tape / and remote backup server setups at others. My favorite is still the Availl setup we're using at one architect. WAFS continuous replication to the 2nd office; and using their CDP backup solution over VPN for backups. Wild. Works great, but not cheap.
 
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