SSD drives

[David Kramer]

Edward Ned Harvey wrote:
>> I think in the commercial realm tapes still have considerable utility
>> for the foreseeable  future. They are still cheaper than HDD storage,
>> they weigh less, and they are less fragile.  What medium is a suitable
>> replacement for tape when historical backup schemes are involved?

Will a tape sitting on a shelf in a box really last longer than a hard
drive sitting on a box on a shelf?  And today's hard drives can store
more than a single tape, so you can't count size as 1:1

> The main reason to use tapes is because they're smaller, more durable, with
> a longer shelf life than hard drives, and therefore easier and cheaper to
> store permanently or for longer periods of time.

They may be more durable, but I've heard a hell of a lot more incidents
of people thinking they were backing up to their tapes when the writes
failed every time silently for months, vs hard drives.  Unless you're
verifying each backup, which doubles the backup time.

> Also, there's no such thing as an automatic hard drive changing robot.  So
> if your backup doesn't fit entirely onto a single hard drive or tape ... You
> can still make a solution with hard drives ... but it becomes less clear
> than the tape solution.

That's because there's no such need for an automatic hard drive changing
robot, since you can have any number of hard drives connected at the
same time to a computer.  And you can have the computer spin them up or
down as needed, or even fully power them off.