tape as an archival medium
 

Hi all,

I used tapes aplenty back in the 1990's. They were a relatively cheap
way to save your data; obviously, slow if you had to access it. And
after 2-3 years they would usually go flaky (I am talking 4mm and 8mm
tapes).

Now I am wondering if anybody has had any recent experience with them
and what they impression is. We are potentially looking to archive up
to 20 TB of data (for now).

Any reports of experience, both positive and negative, would be
greatly appreciated.

Boris.

tape as an archival medium
 

On Tue, 29 Jun 2010 12:10:44 -0700 (PDT), Boris Epstein
wrote:

Hi all,

I used tapes aplenty back in the 1990's. They were a relatively cheap
way to save your data; obviously, slow if you had to access it. And
after 2-3 years they would usually go flaky (I am talking 4mm and 8mm
tapes).

Now I am wondering if anybody has had any recent experience with them
and what they impression is. We are potentially looking to archive up
to 20 TB of data (for now).

Any reports of experience, both positive and negative, would be
greatly appreciated.

Boris.

20 TB is a huge amount of data... tapes are usually 400gb so you need
many of them.

I never used tapes for backup, I prefer backup HD, but of course it's
your choice.

Modern tapes are very reliable anyway, compared to the 90s ones.

--
Arts, Music, Technology - http://manuelmarino.com

Has technology impoverished the actual experience
of listening to music? - http://manuelmarino.com/forum

tape as an archival medium
 

"Boris Epstein" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

I used tapes aplenty back in the 1990's. They were a relatively cheap
way to save your data; obviously, slow if you had to access it. And
after 2-3 years they would usually go flaky (I am talking 4mm and 8mm
tapes).

Now I am wondering if anybody has had any recent experience with them
and what they impression is. We are potentially looking to archive up
to 20 TB of data (for now).

Any reports of experience, both positive and negative, would be
greatly appreciated.

Boris.

our company still backs up to tapes every evening.

tape as an archival medium
 

"Boris Epstein" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

I used tapes aplenty back in the 1990's. They were a relatively cheap
way to save your data; obviously, slow if you had to access it. And
after 2-3 years they would usually go flaky (I am talking 4mm and 8mm
tapes).

Now I am wondering if anybody has had any recent experience with them
and what they impression is. We are potentially looking to archive up
to 20 TB of data (for now).

Any reports of experience, both positive and negative, would be
greatly appreciated.

Like "Manuel" I also backup to disk - cycling removable 2TB disks. We made
the choice to go to disk because it was cheaper and faster. That said, if
you are looking at 20TB then that's either a lot of disks or a very large
disk changer (last time I looked tapes were up to 400GB), so you may be
looking at a very expensive backup solution.

Out of curiosity what do you currently backup (your 20TB) to?
--
Brian Cryer
http://www.cryer.co.uk/brian

tape as an archival medium
 

On Jun 29, 11:34*pm, "Mark Opolo" wrote:
"Boris Epstein" wrote in message

...

Hi all,

I used tapes aplenty back in the 1990's. They were a relatively cheap
way to save your data; obviously, slow if you had to access it. And
after 2-3 years they would usually go flaky (I am talking 4mm and 8mm
tapes).

Now I am wondering if anybody has had any recent experience with them
and what they impression is. We are potentially looking to archive up
to 20 TB of data (for now).

Any reports of experience, both positive and negative, would be
greatly appreciated.

Boris.

our company still backs up to tapes every evening.

Mark,

Have you had to use those backups? What sort of experience if any have
you had trying to read the data off them?

Thanks.

Boris.

tape as an archival medium
 

"Boris Epstein" wrote in message
...
On Jun 29, 11:34 pm, "Mark Opolo" wrote:
"Boris Epstein" wrote in message

...

Hi all,

I used tapes aplenty back in the 1990's. They were a relatively cheap
way to save your data; obviously, slow if you had to access it. And
after 2-3 years they would usually go flaky (I am talking 4mm and 8mm
tapes).

Now I am wondering if anybody has had any recent experience with them
and what they impression is. We are potentially looking to archive up
to 20 TB of data (for now).

Any reports of experience, both positive and negative, would be
greatly appreciated.

Boris.

our company still backs up to tapes every evening.

Mark,

Have you had to use those backups? What sort of experience if any have
you had trying to read the data off them?

Thanks.

Boris.

I have been with the company 10 years and never seen or heard of them being
a problem but then again the IT guy is very secretive about what he does.

tape as an archival medium
 

"Brian Cryer" not.here@localhost wrote in message
...
"Boris Epstein" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

I used tapes aplenty back in the 1990's. They were a relatively cheap
way to save your data; obviously, slow if you had to access it. And
after 2-3 years they would usually go flaky (I am talking 4mm and 8mm
tapes).

Now I am wondering if anybody has had any recent experience with them
and what they impression is. We are potentially looking to archive up
to 20 TB of data (for now).

Any reports of experience, both positive and negative, would be
greatly appreciated.

Like "Manuel" I also backup to disk - cycling removable 2TB disks. We made
the choice to go to disk because it was cheaper and faster. That said, if
you are looking at 20TB then that's either a lot of disks or a very large
disk changer (last time I looked tapes were up to 400GB), so you may be
looking at a very expensive backup solution.

Sorry, that should have read "... a very large TAPE changer ...".

With our current 2TB doing a price comparision it was a no-brainer to go
with disk based backups. But once you need multiple disks for a single
backup I suspect other factors may come into play. So I'd be interested to
learn your conclusions.

Out of curiosity what do you currently backup (your 20TB) to?
--
Brian Cryer
http://www.cryer.co.uk/brian