After having numerous issues with AIT tape drives crapping out and
media not reading we have been testing backup to IDE hard disks
instead. Using an external Baydock 800 firewire external drive bay
(with multiple removable trays) and veritas 10 we have been able to
backup more successfully than ever. The backup rate to IDE is as quick
as tape over all and restoration of data is pretty much instant given
there is no tape seek time. IDE disks are basically as cheap as tapes
(gig for gig) and after a few months of using this backup method, not
a single disks failure. Other than the fact that for long term
archiving disks may not be the best (may not spin up 3 yrs down the
track) is there any reason why I should not stick with this method? I
also note that in a DR situation, restore from tape is only as good as
having compatible tape drive available for restoring data. With IDE
(or even SATA) disks, they can be read in pretty much anything.
Comments?

Jim.Seedlenissip@gmail.com wrote:

Yeah, tapes are way past their useby date for personal
desktop systems now and even for smaller servers etc.

And eSATA drives are even faster than firewire.

Not really for multiple generations of backup.
The media cost is significantly lower with tapes.

Yeah, they are generally much more reliable than tape.

There isnt much evidence of a problem in that regard with current hard drives.

Drives dont like being dropped, thats a significant downside if you are clumsy.

Indeed.

Thanks for the comments. Yes are subject to the dropping risk. We use
a foam padded carry case for transport of the disks.
Do you feel that they are a longterm viable means of backing up 300G+
per night. Be interested to hear from an IT shop using this as their
primary backup method in place of tapes. Anyone?

Jim.Seedlenissip@gmail.com wrote:

Yes.

Some do with smaller systems.

Rita Ä Berkowitz <ritaberk2O04 @aol.com> wrote:
Have fun explaining the stats that google got.
http://216.239.37.132/papers/disk_failures.pdf

She's called Bigotowitz for a reason.

Rita Ä Berkowitz wrote:

Ignore the SCSI troll.

"chrisv" <chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote in message news:6i60v2tvrpnu39d43g00rh3jdd56cuia9j@4ax.com
So why don't you.

Rita Ä Berkowitz <ritaberk2O04 @aol.com> wrote:
: Jim.Seedlenissip@gmail.com wrote:
:
:: Thanks for the comments. Yes are subject to the dropping
:: risk. We use a foam padded carry case for transport of the
:: disks.
:: Do you feel that they are a longterm viable means of backing
:: up 300G+ per night. Be interested to hear from an IT shop
:: using this as their primary backup method in place of tapes.
:: Anyone?
:
: You should be using Seagate Cheetah U320 SCSI (SCA) drives for
: your backups. They are cheap, fast, and reliable. Using SATA
: drives for backup is like playing Russian roulette with 5 in
: the cylinder.

At 3X - 5X the cost? Are you nuts? Your comments are both nonsensical and
inflammatory. You are a troll "Rita" (Rita is really a guy who likes to
wear women's panties while posting), just like your trolling posts over at
rec.photo.digital. Wait, I hear a sound....do you hear that?? KER-PLONK!

TLG