Personally I think USB drives are a bad idea. Not so
much from the reliability standpoint as from the index and catalog
standpoint. USB drive will probably have to be labeled individually and
you end up having some admin/operator manually keeping track of where all
the drives are located (e.g. vault or on-site).
Most, if not all, tape system / backup software do
indexing and cataloging as part of their software and will read bar-codes
tapes. They will tell you what tapes to pull and what to bring back from
vault. And if you have an ATL or tape loader, the software
will do the ejecting / requesting automagically. Our ATL system does
this and it makes what we call the "vault run" a snap.
I agree with the other posts... for the money you will
spend on USB drives and the possible potential tracking problems, go with
the standard SAN and tape loader solution.
-Stuart Fuller
P.S. The other part of this question you should be asking
is what is my recovery plan? If the USB drives are the way to go, then how
does that plan work when I need to recover something? Also if you are
using a DR vendor like Sungard or Iron Mountain, how will USB drives and your
plan work with their systems??
From: Dan DeStefano [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2004 9:52 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [ActiveDir] Backup Strategy
I am sorry if this
is off-topic, but I greatly respect the opinions/suggestions that come from this
list.
I am working on a backup strategy for my company.
We have just over 300GB of data to back up. I have been asked to estimate
storage capacity/cost required to keep data for 1 month and 3 months, so this
means that we will need between 1 and 3 TB of storage. The current backups are
stored on a SCSI array and the plan is to use USB drives for offsiting our data.
This means that we will need 4-12 300GB USB drives to store our offsite
data.
I personally do not like this solution and am in
favor of a disk/tape solution; using a disk array for onsite backups and using
tape for offsite backups. The company prefers disk-based backup because of its
speed. However, I think that disks are less reliable than tape and that using
USB drives is not an enterprise-class solution (I have also heard that those
300GB USB drives are not too reliable). Not to mention the fact that these
drives are bulky and our server room is already pretty cramped.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Are my concerns
valid? Is my suggestion of disk/tape the best solution?
_________________________
Daniel DeStefano
PC Support Specialist
IAG Research
345 Park Avenue South, 12th
Floor
New York, NY 10010
T. 212.871.5262
F. 212.871.5300
Measuring Ad Effectiveness on
Television
The information contained in this communication is confidential,
may be privileged and is intended for the exclusive use of the above named
addressee(s). If you are not the intended recipient(s), you are expressly
prohibited from copying, distributing, disseminating, or in any other way using
any of the information contained within this communication. If you have received
this communication in error, please contact the sender by telephone 212.871.5262
or by response via e-mail.
