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Tapes still widely used for backups?
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Unabomber
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If you were to sell your Powervault, you could probably get about 250-350 bucks for it, if you knew of a facility that still used tapes (and didn't want to switch; many research are notorious for being reluctant to embrace new technology when it comes to computers).
I would check with various universities in the area, especially research labs that are constantly backing up data from their older PC's. A lot of them are going to want to keep things running as seamlessly as possible with minimal change, and you can probably find a professor who is willing to pay for one out of his own pocket.
What kind of tapes does it use?
I would check with various universities in the area, especially research labs that are constantly backing up data from their older PC's. A lot of them are going to want to keep things running as seamlessly as possible with minimal change, and you can probably find a professor who is willing to pay for one out of his own pocket.
What kind of tapes does it use?
drescherjm
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Yes tapes are still used. I use them mainly because they are orders of magnitude more reliable than disk and easier to grow the storage and make multiple independent backups. At work I have 170 LTO2 tapes and a 2 drive 24 slot archive for backups. Yes I would like to replace that with an LTO4 archive or LTO6 archive but we don't have the budget for a $5000 or so expenditure at the moment. BTW, I still consider LTO4 because of its read compatibility with our current tapes.
Every back-up media rots with time. Nothing but cave etchings, stone carvings lasts for hundreds even thousands of years. In 100 years, all your work and data on discs, HDDs, and tapes will live happily in the landfill anyway.
That being said why use:
Type Super DLT - 5.25" x 1H
Capacity 110 GB (native) / 220 GB (compressed)
instead of a small portable 1TB HDD going for $69?
That being said why use:
Type Super DLT - 5.25" x 1H
Capacity 110 GB (native) / 220 GB (compressed)
instead of a small portable 1TB HDD going for $69?
pablopicasso
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Still relevant
Depends on the company and use case.
My previous company we used Data Domain, but after 30 days, we spun the data from virtual tapes to physical tapes, which were shipped off to iron mountain. Then you have certain tapes that are saved for compliance reasons. In my current company we are moving away from tape to 100% data domain, then replicating data domains cross site. So if one site burns down, the other has the previous nights backups.
I would trade in your old hardware regardless of what it is. You might not get much for it, but its better then tossing it into the landfill for free. Credit towards a new purchase is credit regardless of the amount.
best of luck.
My previous company we used Data Domain, but after 30 days, we spun the data from virtual tapes to physical tapes, which were shipped off to iron mountain. Then you have certain tapes that are saved for compliance reasons. In my current company we are moving away from tape to 100% data domain, then replicating data domains cross site. So if one site burns down, the other has the previous nights backups.
I would trade in your old hardware regardless of what it is. You might not get much for it, but its better then tossing it into the landfill for free. Credit towards a new purchase is credit regardless of the amount.
best of luck.
ok, so let's see now:
LTO3 holds 400GB;
LTO6 released in 2012 can hold 2.5 TB in a cartridge.
tapes are indeed cheap, $40 - 1.5TB; however, the drive sells for $1800!
drescherjm
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Which is cheap when you have several hundred tapes. Although at that point you should have an autoloader with at least 24 slots which will be more like $5000 US to start.
Just wanted to bring up that tape can even be viable for home users. If you want backups more reliable than DVDs and have massive data to store that hard drives won't cover.
LTO drives, as mentioned above, are expensive. But moving into instead "DDS/DAT" tape types, the drives (and tapes) can be affordable ($300+ drives, $20 or less/more tapes). I outlined the affordable tape options the other day here (connection options for low end drives are normally SAS & USB).
Not ideal for all home users, but definitely viable depending on your needs.
LTO drives, as mentioned above, are expensive. But moving into instead "DDS/DAT" tape types, the drives (and tapes) can be affordable ($300+ drives, $20 or less/more tapes). I outlined the affordable tape options the other day here (connection options for low end drives are normally SAS & USB).
Not ideal for all home users, but definitely viable depending on your needs.
TeeJayHoward
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I was actually considering this myself. I ended up deciding that it wasn't worth the cost. I've got about 10TB of data I'd want to back up. If I were to try and back that up on to tape, it'd cost me almost two thousand bucks. Instead, I could pick up 4x3TB drives for about $400. Yes, the drives would be more fragile than tapes, but it'd be my third copy of the data. I think it'd be okay. I could build two NAS units with full redundancy and STILL be under the cost of a tape drive...
I have massive data to store and using 160GB tapes would be a nightmare and not economical at all ! I'm already overwhelmed by the number of hard drives I have and they're 1,5TB, 2TB and 3TB drives.
drescherjm
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I would be interested in looking if you post items in the FS/FT section.
LTO3 stuff is more or less retired from most businesses, so they can be had pretty cheap for home use. I got an LTO3 changer and about 30 tapes under $500 over a year ago, and I think it's a much better solution than HDDs at the price range.
I think LTO4's a being retired slowly, and I think it'd probably be at the home use sweet spot if the setup can be had for under a grand.
I like tapes in the fact that they're just much more stable media than HDDs are. I do my daily's onto ZFS array, but my weekly's go to tapes. If I do everything with HDDs, I'd need at least 2 copies of backups in separate machines or 2 off-line copies.
I think LTO4's a being retired slowly, and I think it'd probably be at the home use sweet spot if the setup can be had for under a grand.
I like tapes in the fact that they're just much more stable media than HDDs are. I do my daily's onto ZFS array, but my weekly's go to tapes. If I do everything with HDDs, I'd need at least 2 copies of backups in separate machines or 2 off-line copies.
"Depending on your needs" is the operative statement there.
Not a lot of affordable options for home users needing gigantic backups, besides more (and more) hard drives. And yes in fact it can be relatively economical, depending on your definition of such. 160GB DAT 160 tapes at $29 (Amazon) = $0.175/MB. 72GB DAT 72 at $15=$0.208/MB. Versus unreliable & smaller DVDs & Blu-ray discs, it can be a viable choice for removable/transferable media backups.
If you are fortunate enough to find a used LTO drive at an affordable price as mentioned by a poster above (in good working condition with lots of life left), the per MB tape costs are even less (along with increased convenience due to their large (compressed) capacity: 800GB for LTO-3, 1.6TB for LTO-4, 3TB for LTO-5, etc.)).
Because of the size of data we are talking about. If we are talking 1 - 8 TB of data it's manageable via extra hard disks. But once you start talking 16TB and higher it gets to be where storing your data on a cold device is actually detrimental.
USB thumb drives, BD's, DVD, and CD's are: A) too small B) cost more C) too slow D) are a bitch to manage comparatively.
Tape is definitely still widely used. A drive based backup solution is great for easy backups and fast restores. However, if you have long retention periods for your backed up data, it can be quite expensive.
Tape may seem more reliable than disk at first glance, however backup appliances are always on-line and are therefore always in a state of being monitored. I have personally pulled tapes back from IM to find that the media is shot. replication between appliances at alternate locations provides some level of assurance that the data is available for restore.
For home users, I highly recommend using an online backup solution. Ideally, you can get one at a reasonable price for a lot of storage or even unlimited backup storage. I use a local NAS, external drives, RAID configurations, and an online backup service for important things (pictures, etc.) The good backup services are fault tolerant and replicate between their data centers ensuring that your data is protected.
EH
Tape may seem more reliable than disk at first glance, however backup appliances are always on-line and are therefore always in a state of being monitored. I have personally pulled tapes back from IM to find that the media is shot. replication between appliances at alternate locations provides some level of assurance that the data is available for restore.
For home users, I highly recommend using an online backup solution. Ideally, you can get one at a reasonable price for a lot of storage or even unlimited backup storage. I use a local NAS, external drives, RAID configurations, and an online backup service for important things (pictures, etc.) The good backup services are fault tolerant and replicate between their data centers ensuring that your data is protected.
EH
Unless the datacenter was built new from the ground up recently, I can almost guarantee they use backup tapes of some sort. Either for legacy restores or for current backups. Tapes are very cheap, small, easy to transport, store and thus easy to archive.
Tapes aren't, or shouldn't be, your only backup medium. If its important, you will have the data on hard drives, and tapes offsite.
My company used to be, SAN, mirror of SAN, then tapes that were sent off site everyday. We've moved from tapes, to an avamar system. We now have a DR in another part of the state that we backup the avamar to.
Some of our affiliate companies in our DC still use tapes.
My company used to be, SAN, mirror of SAN, then tapes that were sent off site everyday. We've moved from tapes, to an avamar system. We now have a DR in another part of the state that we backup the avamar to.
Some of our affiliate companies in our DC still use tapes.
i work at a brand new ground up data center. tape is still used.
typically goes disk > replicated to disk either directly at the SAN layer or via backup software > then disk to tape.
tape is exceptionally resilient and should be part of any disaster recovery plan. it doesn't play the main role that it used to play but it does have a role.
MrGuvernment
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Because tapes will last longer, no moving parts, no worries of bad sectors, no worries of a motor not spinning up cause it sat in a closet for 6 months and was never turned on.
TeeJayHoward
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Data integrity checks are a part of any good backup policy, regardless of media.
I have to disagree about the stone carvings. We have no idea how many were lost over time. I suspect most of them were lost.
Even with the stone carvings that exist, it is very hard to decipher the characters let lone the meaning. And there is very little information compared to what we individually have on disks.
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My hard drive has a program that helps me get around the internet. Maybe in 100 years, certainly 1000 years, from now no one will know what an internet is. Deciphering what that progam is or does may be beyond the ability of people of that time.
I am sure that all the porn on computers will survive. But little else of current value.
MrGuvernment
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Bingo, you should, or should consider moving backups to new forms of media every so often to be even safer.
the general theory on tapes (stored correctly) is that the ability to read them will fail sooner than the tape's ability to be read.I have to disagree about the stone carvings. We have no idea how many were lost over time. I suspect most of them were lost.
Even with the stone carvings that exist, it is very hard to decipher the characters let lone the meaning. And there is very little information compared to what we individually have on disks.
---
My hard drive has a program that helps me get around the internet. Maybe in 100 years, certainly 1000 years, from now no one will know what an internet is. Deciphering what that progam is or does may be beyond the ability of people of that time.
I am sure that all the porn on computers will survive. But little else of current value.
example, how much effort would be involved in trying to play a BETAMAX movie? the tape and video on the tape is perfectly readable. good luck finding the player.
100 years from now even 20 years is unimportant because the data likely will have zero relevance.
They found the tapes, the problem was they were all erased and recorded over in the 80's. Tape was so widely used and expensive in the 70's and 80's that its supply couldn't meet all the demands or buyers budgets, so people like NASA and a lot of music recording studios had to resort to erasing original masters of things and keeping only limited copies.
TeeJayHoward
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*cough* Doctor Who *cough*
Tape is still used but is not as common as it used to be. A big reason behind it is the fact that disk based storage has grown very quickly. With 600gb SAS drives and 2-4TB SATA drives out there it takes a LOT of tape to back that stuff up. Even LTO-6 tapes only hold 2.5TB each and with write speed at 160mb/sec max it takes a couple hours to fill up the tape. This would cripple production on a full backup day.
This is why a lot of folks do the disk --> dedupe-disk --> tape method if they have tape at all. Since the tape backup can be running on the dedupe-disk target during normal business hours without any impact it works out pretty good and still satisfies long term retention requirements and the tape becomes a ronco thing, set it and forget it. You can do a monthly full backup and send it off to Iron Mountain for a few years then recall the tape if needed.
This is why a lot of folks do the disk --> dedupe-disk --> tape method if they have tape at all. Since the tape backup can be running on the dedupe-disk target during normal business hours without any impact it works out pretty good and still satisfies long term retention requirements and the tape becomes a ronco thing, set it and forget it. You can do a monthly full backup and send it off to Iron Mountain for a few years then recall the tape if needed.
Tapes do turn on spindles, correct? And the drives are mechanical.
Also, as per my quoted post, would anyone care for your data in 100 years?
This argument is going on at the photo forum; what do photogs do with all their CDs, DVDs, HDDs full of photos when they are dead? My bet is that all of it goes into the garbage dump.
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I think you lost your marbles