[plug] Tape backup solution?

[Keith Bawden]

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 19:58, Fred Janon <fjanon at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Since a thread was started on RAID, I was wondering if someone knows where
> the tape backup solutions are now. What the tapes capacities are and what
> approximate cost for the drive and the tapes. I am doing backups on CDs and
> DVDs but I cannot backup entire drives anymore.
>

Tapes vary greatly in size and price. Up to at around 400 GB per tape
for LTO-3 (I have not used anything larger myself). However, tapes are
generally quite expensive.

A cheaper alternative for home use might be to invest in an
e-SATA/firewire/USB type setup. You can play around with some udev
rules and have a backup job auto kick off on hotplug.

I have seen 1 TB SATA drives go for around AUD 250 or so. This is
substantially less that the cost of single LTO3 tape and the required
drive (and SCSI controller if needed).

The draw back with backing up to hdd is that you will more often than
not leave the backup medium on site after each backup. In the even of
a fire or whatever you will loose everything...

As with most thing technology related you will have to weigh your options.

Regards, Keith