Tape drives

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uss enterprise

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 5, 2009
Messages
298
Hey all, quick question.

I have a few old Seagate USB tape drives, along with a messload (like 2 boxes) of new and used tapes. (20gb, 40gb, and 80gb)

I have a lot of pics of my kids, all the way from the birthing room at the hospital to now.

I really don't trust keeping them on hard drives, or even burning them to DVD's. Not secure enough for me. I would not EVER want to loose the pictures.

I hear that tape storage is the way to go for a more permanent back up solution, which is why when I saw these, I grabbed them. Good price, too. Free.

But I haven't used them yet, they've been sitting here for a year.

So my question is, exactly how permanent is tape as a backup solution? Should I expect a few years? Longer? Shorter?

Should I make multiple tapes of the same pics? (which i will probably do anyway, for redundancy. A copy here, and a copy at a relative's house)

My sound stupid, but for anyone who has kids knows, there are just some moments you would never want to lose, or forget. And these moments are important to us.

Thanks!
 
I'm no pro but there are some CDs/DVDs that have a special coating for long term (100 yrs.) storage.

At any rate, do a little reading here on the subject.

Regardless of the media, items should be duplicated and stored at different places. You should also consider online storage as one of the possibilities.
 
Tapes are flakey at best. Your biggest problem is ensuring you will have a viable tape reader to actually read your data in 20 years.

Optical media has a limited lifetime also.

Magnetic media must be refreshed over time or it fades also.

Not sure about the lifetime of flash media. That may be an option.

How much data are you talking about.

For really important data, multiple copies on a couple of different formats are required. You must test and refresh the backups every few years.

Your best bet for photos unfortunately, is high quality prints in the proper storage conditions.

Don
 
Contradictory information is bad, mmmkay?

First of all, 20/40/80, I'm guessing DDS/DAT. (I'd be interested if you decide to sell!) If you aren't talking DDS and are talking Travan, flaky would be a tremendous improvement. Travan has always been the 8" floppy of tape. DDS tapes are extremely reliable for long term storage, when properly cared for. The same goes for the drives - they'll last a very long time, if properly cared for. A properly maintained DDS3 tape can retain data for 10 years - if not written to. DDS has an average maximum write lifespan of ~100 full length writes. But ten times as many reads. Contrary to DonDon's statement, DDS3 and DDS4 media does not typically need passed over heads ("refreshed".) LTO2, LTO3 and LTO4 media never needs refreshed.
Travan is good for ~10 full length writes, and about as many full length reads. They're not worth the trash they're made from.

Optical media varies. You'd be using CD/DVD, rather than MO-WORM. MO-WORM has a lifespan of over 25 years - well over 25 years. It's also very expensive.
You should read: http://www.loc.gov/preserv/rt/projects/cd-r_dvd-r_rw_longevity.html

Flash Media is subject to the same limitations as tape; you need something to read it. Standards change and update frequently. It also has a significantly limited write lifespan - about 1000 full size writes typically. Remember, most archival storage will be a full length write and then nothing but reads. However, if you have any sort of electrical failure, you've lost all of your data. Completely.

I'm with DonDon in the end though; high quality prints in proper storage is the only guaranteed way you'll never lose those photos. Who knows if you'll even have an application able to read JPEGs in 10 years?
 
Tapes are a good when you want to archive large quantities of data, in addition to your usual data storage. If you have the equipment, why not use it?

I have a LTO1 drive and buy tapes now and then when they're cheap on ebay, but I wouldn't keep data on tape only. They are about as or more reliable than HDDs or DVDs.

Don't care too much about the file formats, I can still open the Windows Paintbrush bmps of my first computer in 1994, I have no doubt that jpeg will be readable in the next decades.
But a concern should be the Backup software. Windows Vista does not support tape drives out of the box anymore!
Afaik the software which writes the tapes can read it, maybe newer versions too, but don't be sure when it comes to different manufacturers!
However, even if you dig out your tapes in 10+ years and have no equipment to read it, someone will, so there will be no loss of data, but maybe of money :D
 
Tapes are awesome! We sell thousands of them where I work, and just depends on which flavor of tape you get. I like to support the LTO flavors over the other ones like SDLT or DAT/DDS ect..
 
If you have less than 25GB of data, just use Microsoft SkyDrive for free online backup of your data.

Together with something like Gladinet you can even have it auto update your files http://www.homeserverhacks.com/2008/12/mount-your-skydrive-as-virtual-folder.html

edit: You can actually accomplish that with windows live sync http://sync.live.com/
Edit2: I am not sure Live Sync actually uploads it anywhere.. still playing with it.. I use Dropbox personally, but it has a 2GB free limit.

The only limitation is a 50MB/file limit.. Not a problem for pictures, but if you are trying to store ISOs up there it will be.

You can also consider something like Mozy though it has a monthly fee if you have more than 2GB of data.

And multiple copies in multiple locations beats any media any day.
 
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You really cant rely on one single medium. I would suggest doing the tape thing as well as putting the pics up on the "cloud" (That being some sort of storage service online.) But they have their downsides Tape being you gotta refresh them every five years or so and you gotta make sure your online storage provider doesn't go poof.
 
You would be stupid to leave your data on one piece of media, reguardless of what it is.. CD, DVD, tape, harddrive, ect..

Tapes were built to last for a while and be slightly more durable than a harddrive, and I'm pretty sure CD/DVDs don't last but like 5 years or so. Technology increases faster than the lifespan of any media though, so it's not really if a media will last 20 years, because the technology won't.
 
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