Tape Backup

[Paul Rubin]

Regardless of where the bottleneck is you need to have software which will
write the same data to two tapes simultaneously in order to backup to two
drives simultaneously.

I just don't see any multi-kilobucks of software needed for that. I
could probably hack up GNU Tar to do it pretty straightforwardly.

Is that the price they finally went for or the starting price? Lowest ebay
price I've seen is a bit less than the lowest Froogle price but that
auction still had some time to go. And they're still in the $800 range.

There were a few at $600 or so if you clicked "Buy It Now". Someone
may have snagged them all. I was surprised they were that low and
even $800 is pretty good. Just a few months ago I'd been seeing them
in the $1300 range but now you can get brand new Certance LTO2 drives
for $1700-ish from dealers.

And what am I supposed to see there? I'm sorry, but a $130 cartridge and a
$5000 tape drive is not 400 gig for 400 bucks, it's 400 gig for 5130 bucks.

We were discussing the media cost. Yes, the tape drive adds a lot.
LTO3 is way out of my price range for example. LTO2 is more than I
want to spend but not outside the realm of possibility if I can think
of a use for that much capacity. LTO1 even at $800 looks pretty
attractive, a much more serious medium than using a bunch of those
consumer hard drives.

So far you have convinced me of nothing. Perhaps if you weren't buying
$6000 tape drives you could afford some software.

There's absolutely no way I'm going to trust backups or security
(encryption) to software (or at least data layouts) that I don't have
source for and hasn't been publicly reviewed. I won't have my data
hostage to some software company. No amount of money in the world
(well...) could get me to run non-free software for stuff like this.

 

[Al Dykes]

I just don't see any multi-kilobucks of software needed for that. I
could probably hack up GNU Tar to do it pretty straightforwardly.


There were a few at $600 or so if you clicked "Buy It Now". Someone
may have snagged them all. I was surprised they were that low and
even $800 is pretty good. Just a few months ago I'd been seeing them
in the $1300 range but now you can get brand new Certance LTO2 drives
for $1700-ish from dealers.


We were discussing the media cost. Yes, the tape drive adds a lot.
LTO3 is way out of my price range for example. LTO2 is more than I
want to spend but not outside the realm of possibility if I can think
of a use for that much capacity. LTO1 even at $800 looks pretty
attractive, a much more serious medium than using a bunch of those
consumer hard drives.

I've bought a couple hundered LT IV carts on ebay, a few at a time and
saved the little company I worked for at least 50% of street price.
At some point I realized that the name brand tapes (mostly FUJI) had a
lifetime no-questions-asked replacement warranty. That made buying
tapes a no-brainer, since I could even buy a broken tape and
eventually get a new tape for it. I also had Veritas backup software
that reported tape soft error rates, so I could see weak tapes
and cycle them out of the heavy rotations.

I use ebauy to by tapes that are listed as being unopened,
without hesitation.

OT: I forget how much data teh OP backs up. I'd look at DLT IV tape
(35GB/70 compressed) would be cheaper for the OP. Lots of drives and
tapes on Ebay.

DLT is so heavily used in business that you'll be able to get tapes,
and drives for a years, and 50 years from now I bet there will be some
data conversion companies that will read your tape if you should need
it.

 

[J. Clarke]

I just don't see any multi-kilobucks of software needed for that. I
could probably hack up GNU Tar to do it pretty straightforwardly.

Now use that to back up a Windows box.

There were a few at $600 or so if you clicked "Buy It Now". Someone
may have snagged them all. I was surprised they were that low and
even $800 is pretty good. Just a few months ago I'd been seeing them
in the $1300 range but now you can get brand new Certance LTO2 drives
for $1700-ish from dealers.


We were discussing the media cost.

Perhaps you were discussing the media cost. I was discussion the cost of
obtaining a backup. The media does you no good at all without the drive.

Yes, the tape drive adds a lot.
LTO3 is way out of my price range for example. LTO2 is more than I
want to spend but not outside the realm of possibility if I can think
of a use for that much capacity. LTO1 even at $800 looks pretty
attractive, a much more serious medium than using a bunch of those
consumer hard drives.

It may be a more "serious" medium, but does it really confer any advantage
when used as a backup device? Not an archiving device, a _backup_ device?

There's absolutely no way I'm going to trust backups or security
(encryption) to software (or at least data layouts) that I don't have
source for and hasn't been publicly reviewed. I won't have my data
hostage to some software company. No amount of money in the world
(well...) could get me to run non-free software for stuff like this.

Suit yourself. Personally I've got better uses for 6 grand than backing up
my video collection.

 

[J. Clarke]

I've bought a couple hundered LT IV carts on ebay, a few at a time and
saved the little company I worked for at least 50% of street price.
At some point I realized that the name brand tapes (mostly FUJI) had a
lifetime no-questions-asked replacement warranty. That made buying
tapes a no-brainer, since I could even buy a broken tape and
eventually get a new tape for it. I also had Veritas backup software
that reported tape soft error rates, so I could see weak tapes
and cycle them out of the heavy rotations.

I use ebauy to by tapes that are listed as being unopened,
without hesitation.

OT: I forget how much data teh OP backs up. I'd look at DLT IV tape
(35GB/70 compressed) would be cheaper for the OP. Lots of drives and
tapes on Ebay.

DLT is so heavily used in business that you'll be able to get tapes,
and drives for a years, and 50 years from now I bet there will be some
data conversion companies that will read your tape if you should need
it.

Why would one want to read a 50 year old backup? Or are you confusing
"archive" and "backup"?

 

[Al Dykes]

Why would one want to read a 50 year old backup? Or are you confusing
"archive" and "backup"?

I was talking about the media, and how long it will be readable.

backup, archive. what's the diff ? My archive frequently consists of
taking a tape out of the backup cycle and putting it in an offsite
vault, for posterity. At one point I had 18 years of tapes. QIC, 8MM,
DDS, and DLT, from just about every OS you could name. We knew that
getting data from the QIC cartridge from the old MASSCOMP would be a
PITA to read, but know that we could get a service to do it if
necessary. This kind of archive made sense for the business we were
in. From time to time I took the oldest tape I still had equipment for
and did a readback. I have to say that the reliability was very very
good.

Given the nature of the company I worked for we occasionally got
involved in software IP casses to prove prior art. Once We got 800bpi
tapes from a major university written by a UnixV6 system. We could
get a service to read the bits and FTP us the data, but the format of
the backup data bore no relationship to any current software. One of
the guy I worked with was a unix file system implementor in the V6
timeframe. I watched hin find the data blocks (from the CD, with grep)
that were the C code for the file system drivers. He them hacked the
read-only part of that code to serially read the rest of the of the
blocks and reconstruct the file system. We recovered docs and C code
that proved that want some graphics tpy that a comapany was trying to
patent was being done in a university in the 70's.

Ain't open source great.

The first mag tape I was involved with was 200BPI 7-track, (upgraded
to 556 right after I started working). I also worked on data
retention policies and technology in a major bank.

 

[Neil Maxwell]

Come back when you are buying verbatim disks, or have a new burner...

You should know that Verbatim doesn't make their own disks, and that
today's disks in a Verbatim package may be made by a completely
different manufacturer than last year's Verbatims or next year's
Verbatims.

Even from one manufacturer, the formulations and manufacturing methods
are constantly being tweaked, and sometimes for lower costs, rather
than better robustness.

 

[J. Clarke]

I was talking about the media, and how long it will be readable.

backup, archive. what's the diff ?

The diff is that you do a backup every day and if you're doing it wisely
you're maintaining at least several days, and possibly several weeks, but
the purpose is disaster recovery. If the media fails after 30 years it
doesn't matter because it's going to get overwritten every couple of weeks.
On the other hand, backup has to be fast and simple or it doesn't get done
anywhere except in large organizations that can put someone in charge of it
and someone else in charge of watching the person in charge to make sure he
does it.

Archiving gets done when there's data that needs to be stored for a long
period of time but does not necessarily have to be immediately available.
It's usually relatively infrequent occurrance but the purpose is to store
and preserve the data, which means that the media should be durable and
there should be multiple copies kept because _no_ media can be considered
completely reliable.

My archive frequently consists of
taking a tape out of the backup cycle and putting it in an offsite
vault, for posterity.

Which if the data is valuable is asking the universe to kick you. Unless
you maintain two or more copies.

At one point I had 18 years of tapes. QIC, 8MM,
DDS, and DLT, from just about every OS you could name. We knew that
getting data from the QIC cartridge from the old MASSCOMP would be a
PITA to read, but know that we could get a service to do it if
necessary.

If the data on the tape is readable. Personally, I have data on my server
going back to 1988. I don't see any need to periodically copy that to the
tape dujour and throw it in "the vault" and then worry about resurrecting
some antiquated tape format later. It all gets protected by my regular
backup. When I fill up the server I just expand it.

This kind of archive made sense for the business we were
in. From time to time I took the oldest tape I still had equipment for
and did a readback. I have to say that the reliability was very very
good.

Given the nature of the company I worked for we occasionally got
involved in software IP casses to prove prior art. Once We got 800bpi
tapes from a major university written by a UnixV6 system. We could
get a service to read the bits and FTP us the data, but the format of
the backup data bore no relationship to any current software. One of
the guy I worked with was a unix file system implementor in the V6
timeframe. I watched hin find the data blocks (from the CD, with grep)
that were the C code for the file system drivers. He them hacked the
read-only part of that code to serially read the rest of the of the
blocks and reconstruct the file system. We recovered docs and C code
that proved that want some graphics tpy that a comapany was trying to
patent was being done in a university in the 70's.

Ain't open source great.

Nope, having someone who knew the formats was great. It may have escaped
your notice but Unix has _never_ been open source. Linux and the later
versions of BSD, but neither of them is based on AT&T code anymore. If you
needed to see the source to V6 in order to do what you needed to do, you
might find someone with a source license but if you didn't you'd likely end
up paying AT&T or Novell or SCO or whoever had it at the time about as much
for the source as you would Microsoft for a source license to XP. And that
assumes that they even _have_ the source anymore.

The first mag tape I was involved with was 200BPI 7-track, (upgraded
to 556 right after I started working). I also worked on data
retention policies and technology in a major bank.

Well that's nice. But what does it have to do with the economics of backup?

 

[David Magda]

If you don't drop or overheat them, HDD reliability if fine for
regular backups. (Backup != long-term storage.)

We recently got a new array with ATA disks which is relatively
'cheap'. We're planning on doing a backup to disk, and then make
copies of the backup images to tape (one tape onsite, another tape
offsite).

Our backups will be faster, but we'll also have stuff 'offline' in
case the disks get fried.

I agree that DVD+/-R(W) is unclear at the moment. However the
German computer magazine c't does regular tests of burner/medium
combinations and has burned disks evaluated with professional

It's also harder to automate if media is too smal. And if it's not
automated, it's less likely to get done.

 

[David Magda]

Has anyone here tried any of the online backup solutions offered by
some ISP's? Essentially you pay a monthly fee for a block of
storage (500MB, 1GB, 2GB, 5GB, whatever) on a server located

Can't this be done with any type of web account? Simply FTP the files
over. Heck, under Linux you can treat your Gmail account as a file
system.

 

[David Magda]

The daily upload would be _really_ slow on an adsl line, but some
smart software that only sent modofied files would make the best of
things (or someting that works in background.

Rsync? Or the multiplatform Unison (not the Usenet reader).

 

[David Magda]

How fortunate for you that your personal finances permit you to see
"just under $800." as affordable. I am not quite sure that the OP
would agree. I certainly don't. Affordable to me is $200. and
that's why I am now looking at external HDD.

And how much is recreating all the data you lost worth to you?

 

[David Magda]

But will a virus typically attack any file that is not executable?
While some do, is that the normal action?

The Witty worm wrote to random locations until it brought down the
system. I'm not sure whether it wrote to the main ("C:") drive, or
all drives.

 

[J. Clarke]

The Witty worm wrote to random locations until it brought down the
system. I'm not sure whether it wrote to the main ("C:") drive, or
all drives.

How prevalent is the Witty worm though?

 

[J. Clarke]

And how much is recreating all the data you lost worth to you?

If he's a typical home user then "recreating all the data you lost" counts
as either recreation or good riddance, depending on whether it was his or
his kid's MP3 collection that went.

 

[Arno Wagner]

We recently got a new array with ATA disks which is relatively
'cheap'. We're planning on doing a backup to disk, and then make
copies of the backup images to tape (one tape onsite, another tape
offsite).

Our backups will be faster, but we'll also have stuff 'offline' in
case the disks get fried.

Good idea. This is really just "persistent buffering", a quite old
technology, e.g. implemented in many tape-library storage systems.

But please use at least 3 independent sets of tapes with this too
and verify the readability of your tapes at regular intervals.

It's also harder to automate if media is too smal. And if it's not
automated, it's less likely to get done.

Also a very good point.

Arno

 

[Arno Wagner]

Can't this be done with any type of web account? Simply FTP the files
over. Heck, under Linux you can treat your Gmail account as a file
system.

Yes, that is one really cool application! I guess Google did not
quite antocipate that ;-)

Arno

 

[Arno Wagner]

The Witty worm wrote to random locations until it brought down the
system. I'm not sure whether it wrote to the main ("C:") drive, or
all drives.

I think it wrote random sectors. Really nasty and unlikely to cause
immediate problems. Witty was innovative in a lot of ways. And
the best part was that it used a vulnerability in a firewall product
(by ISS). The going theory is that witty was written by a very
competent but disgruntled (ex?) employee of ISS.

Arno

 

[Richard Tobin]

And how much is recreating all the data you lost worth to you?

That's not a realistic question for most people in their private
lives. I know many people who would spend hours fixing something
rather than paying someone 30 pounds to do it, but would not consider
doing the work for someone else for, say, 100 pounds.

For most people, time spent outside their job and money are just not
interconvertible.

-- Richard

 

[bigriff]

OT- for the backup disk/ drive/ but about your sourve?

Forgive the intrusion, but if interested I'd suggest you purvue the TOS
at
NewEgg.com before you pay cash and possibly get nothing.

Some Highlights:

All refunds entail a 15% restocking fee, even defective units.
Buyer pays all return postage.
A return does not effect their thirty day warranty. It will always
start from the date of the original shipment. If you get a bad one, you
have to choose to go with out their 30 day warranty (a return will take
more than this time period based on my experience) or take the for sure
15% plus shipping cost (both ways) guaranteed loss.
They don't seem to answer e-mails (try for your self).
They don't have much in the way of service, try calling before you buy.
Be ready to holdddddd.....

I had to return my purchase and it never arrived so I asked for a
refund. I have so far waited 10 times longer than I was told the wait
would be in writting. I have been promised expedited service twice, yet
have not seen a dime.

Just drive to a store and walk in, that way they can't hide/ ignore you
in hopes you give up and go away. NewEgg.com does not offer walk in
service, so go somewhere else.

Many people claim to have had great luck with newegg.com, but to me it
just isn't worth the risk after experiencing how bad it can get. Funny
though! Better than the keystone cops...

New Jingle= "Buy Something From NewEgg.com, Just For Laughs"

Don't be taken advantage of big low ball resellers. You have the cash,
so you have the upper hand. You shouldn't have to "kiss up" to a
business to get good service and quality. You should demand it, and go
somewhere else if they can't deliver. Plain and simple.

 

[J. Clarke]

OT- for the backup disk/ drive/ but about your sourve?

Forgive the intrusion, but if interested I'd suggest you purvue the TOS
at
NewEgg.com before you pay cash and possibly get nothing.

Some Highlights:

All refunds entail a 15% restocking fee, even defective units.

That's refunds, there's no charge to replace defective product.

Buyer pays all return postage.

True for almost every business.

A return does not effect their thirty day warranty. It will always
start from the date of the original shipment.

So? This has no effect on the manufacturer's warranty. They have an
extended stor warranty available on nearly all products for a very low cost
if this is a real concern to you.

If you get a bad one, you
have to choose to go with out their 30 day warranty (a return will take
more than this time period based on my experience) or take the for sure
15% plus shipping cost (both ways) guaranteed loss.

I've never had a return to Newegg take longer than the UPS round-trip plus a
day at their end.

They don't seem to answer e-mails (try for your self).

On March 10, 1876, one Alexander Graham Bell first demonstrated a device
that came to be known as the "telephone". Perhaps you should familiarize
yourself with it.

They don't have much in the way of service, try calling before you buy.
Be ready to holdddddd.....

How much "service" do you expect from a box-shipper?

I had to return my purchase and it never arrived so I asked for a
refund. I have so far waited 10 times longer than I was told the wait
would be in writting. I have been promised expedited service twice, yet
have not seen a dime.

Did you obtain an RMA, if so, what is the status of that RMA?

Just drive to a store and walk in, that way they can't hide/ ignore you
in hopes you give up and go away.

No, instead they have their security guards take bets on which one can make
you bounce the most times on the way out the door.

NewEgg.com does not offer walk in
service, so go somewhere else.

Like where that has better service? CompUSA? (ROF,L).

Many people claim to have had great luck with newegg.com, but to me it
just isn't worth the risk after experiencing how bad it can get. Funny
though! Better than the keystone cops...

New Jingle= "Buy Something From NewEgg.com, Just For Laughs"

Don't be taken advantage of big low ball resellers. You have the cash,
so you have the upper hand. You shouldn't have to "kiss up" to a
business to get good service and quality. You should demand it, and go
somewhere else if they can't deliver. Plain and simple.

So tell us the name of this computer reseller of whom you are aware that
provides the level of service that find to be acceptable.