On Wed, Jan 25, 2006 at 11:08:14PM +0200, Shachar Shemesh wrote:

> I agree that 120GB (as opposed to 20GB, as I thought before) suggest a
> tape solution. Still, the large up-front cost of the tape drive, coupled
> with the cost of each tape, make a hard disk solution seem appealing.

I like a combination of mirroring and other backup. If you make a daily
mirror to a spare server in a period of low activity, then you have
24 hours to do the backup. 

Tape is much nicer than DVD. Single layer DVDs are reasonbly reliable,
but 120 gig sure needs a lot of them. Dual layers are better, but the
media are not commonly available (you can't run out to office depot if
you need a box or two) and Linux support IMHO sucks. 

You need to make an ISO image of the data before you burn it. This means
3 passes through the data, maybe 4. (1 to mirror it, 2 to ISO it, 3 to burn it,
4 to verify it if you are paranoid).

Tape is much better, tape is faster, and single pass only as it reads
and parity checks the tape as it is written. Although they are about $50
a tape, DLT 400 (200 gig) tapes work well and are archival. Add in a 
changer and you can live for a week with no intervention.

If it is still available HP had a wonderful backup package. The price
varied considerably depending upon whether you had a Windows version or
the Unix version. What counted for the price was the operating system
the scheduler ran on. Both versions supported Linux clients to back up
and do the tape I/O.

Geoff.

-- 
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