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Recently OnStream closed up shop. I had one of their drives and found the
cartridges more unreliable than tape. I've about concluded that (real-time)
offsite backup is a realistic option given how inexpensive storage and
bandwidth has become.
Briefly, NT is backed up either EOD, or by the byte, to another location
where you can keep a box for this kind of service. The costs are looking
like $700 a year for 5GB of differential data that can be retrieved online
for any given period. It might seem expensive, but if you've experienced
unreadable media (statistically 1/3 of aged tapes are considered
unreadable), then it's a bargain to have offsite on demand media. A DSL
connection is adequate for EOD back ups. So what if it runs most of the
night!
-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Fritz [mailto:fritz@xxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2001 9:53 AM
To: omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Off-topic: Tape Backups
> I am adding a new box to my small network and I wanted to know if
> any of you have any good recommendations regarding tape backups? I
> know some people are now using large hard drives and then simply
> using ghost or a similar package to keep duplicates...
I'm also in the market for a new backup solution. My HP Travan drive
has gotten so unreliable I can't even successfully back up my system,
let alone trust the backup for later use.
Several people have suggested the OnStream drives. You can get an
OnStream DI30 15GB drive (30GB with compression) for as little as
about $185 delivered. Data cartriges are about $35 each.
Ghosting your data to a spare drive is tempting. It's fast, simple,
and easy to retrieve. You can get prices as low as $50 per 10GB or
so. If you set it up to spin down when not in use, you'll have
almost no wear&tear on the drive. (Can NT do this??) Can't remove
the data for offsite storage, though, and if the drive fails, ALL
your backups are history.
Gary
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