Tape drives.

J

justin2net

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53
Hello,

Are there any sub $2000 USD tape drive implementations for 20-30TB of storage?
Excluding tapes. Something that can be managed in Windows.

I have read that magnetic tape is more reliable than hard drive storage, so I think I might want to archive the really important data onto tape instead of archiving onto drives (and then storing them off-site).

Thanks.
 
After years of fighting with unreadable tapes and broken tape drives, I am inclined to say that they are not very reliable. They work but we have been embarrassed more than once over the last few years when we were unable to retrieve achieved files from tapes, but that's my employers problem not mine. The most reliable back up is multiple copies stored off site, tape, dvd, hdd or whatever. However, it will depend your needs of what is best for you. BTW, 20-30 TB of tapes is a lot of freaking tapes, so the possibility that a few of them fail is likely.
 
justin2net said:
Hello,

Are there any sub $2000 USD tape drive implementations for 20-30TB of storage?
Excluding tapes. Something that can be managed in Windows.

I have read that magnetic tape is more reliable than hard drive storage, so I think I might want to archive the really important data onto tape instead of archiving onto drives (and then storing them off-site).

Thanks.
Click to expand...

My experience regarding tapedrives both at home and at work, is that some tapedrives are quite fragile with lots of moving parts - so you better have at least two of them to make sure you can restore when the time comes :) This might not be the case for all drives though, but it is something to keep in mind. I have both a bunch of old DAT tapes and DLT tapes that I no longer can read (it's just backups of course) since my hardware failed on me a few years ago.

For 30TB I would probably just get a bunch of $89 F4EG drives and find a backup program capable of using them as "tapes" if that is your preferred way - as well as a quick way of inserting/removing them from your system.

Your backup speed would be as fast as some of the fastest LTO drives (around 100-120MB/s) and capacity would be much better (LTO3 is 400GB and SDLT is 800GB) and even if you source cheap drives of ebay, the tapes cost a small fortune aswell (2TB LTO3 is like $190).
 
If you want reliability, then the best answer is to get muliples of something. There is no "perfect never ever ever ever fails" system, and there never shall be. So get at least 3 of everything. Especially if it is really important.
 
caniba said:
After years of fighting with unreadable tapes and broken tape drives, I am inclined to say that they are not very reliable. They work but we have been embarrassed more than once over the last few years when we were unable to retrieve achieved files from tapes, but that's my employers problem not mine. The most reliable back up is multiple copies stored off site, tape, dvd, hdd or whatever. However, it will depend your needs of what is best for you. BTW, 20-30 TB of tapes is a lot of freaking tapes, so the possibility that a few of them fail is likely.
Click to expand...

I find LTO tapes to be very reliable. DLT was also reliable. Although I hear that DDS is not very reliable. With DLT and LTO I still make sure that there are at least 2 backup copies of everything I backup at work.
 
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justin2net said:
Hello,

Are there any sub $2000 USD tape drive implementations for 20-30TB of storage?
Excluding tapes. Something that can be managed in Windows.

I have read that magnetic tape is more reliable than hard drive storage, so I think I might want to archive the really important data onto tape instead of archiving onto drives (and then storing them off-site).

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Look at LTO5 drives. Although you may not be able to get that in at under $2000. LTO4 is doable for under $2000 but then you need 2 times the media.

BTW, do not listen to the drive manufacturers that claim 2.61: 1 compression. That is overly optimistic. Expect 1.5:1 to 1.8:1 for non compressed data and 1:1 for already compressed data.

LTO5 support 1.5TB native tapes (3 TB assuming 2:1 compression) that will run you around $70 to $80 each.
 
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LTO-5 was a good suggestion. I am apparently out-of-date on tape tech :)

I still claim that if the time to restore is crucial (if this is business driven) you should have more of them. While you restore you cannot take new backups if you only have one drive, and if your hardware fails you could be looking at hours/days of waiting for a replacement...

This might seem trivial, but in a enterprise environment this is a real concern. Restoring just a few files from tape could take hours depending on your backup software and you luck.

If you can afford a $2000 personal investment on a LTO drive, I would still suggest you still consider using that amount towards a storage server or pool of harddrives placed offsite. The amount you would have used for tapes should go to a local storage backup server using inexpensive hardware.

And one other thing: Used tapes are worthless and dangerous (how do you delete safely in a timely manner?). Used harddrives isn't. So when you get 4TB drives to replace those 2TBs in a few years, you should be able to safely sell the old ones providing you either encrypt or erase.
 
You could also look into rdx. It is not tape, but a ruggedized removable hard drive that can supposedly survive some relatively large drops. I have been looking into them myself as a more cost effective solution to backing up large amounts of data. The nice thing about rdx is that since it is essentially just a hard drive you do not have to upgrade the drive to upgrade the storage like lto/dlt/etc just buy a larger drive. Dell and others make a rack mount solutions that hold 2-4 drives and can be usb attached, or tandberg has a product just onto the market that holds 8 drives and can be setup as an iscsi target. There are also usb and internal docks on the market. It does not have the longevity of tape for long term cold storage but for short term weekly or monthly it seems like a good solution.

http://www.tandbergdata.com/us/index.cfm/products/disk-based/rdx-quikstation/8900rdx/
 
RDX will certainly not be cheap for 30TB.

Also I am not sure I like RDX at all. Isn't RDX just a regular 2.5 inch laptop drive in an expensive enclosure?
 
To be honest with that amount of data I would be looking at disk backup in a remote location. That is build a SAN/NAS type device and after an initial replication locally, setup replication over the internet for changed data.

I use tapes (AIT autoloader), but am only dealing with ~1TB of data.
 
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