Backups was Restoring MBR - Solved

[Matt Galster]

DAT 1 and 2 had a failure rate at a couple years if they were used
extensively.  The heads seemed to wear out fast.  One of my customers has
used a DAT 3 extensively for three and a half years, it is still going
strong.  I think they're past the early failure issues they had with the
first few versions.  Without real statistical analysis of a large number of
units, your experience (and mine) is just anecdotal.  I like DAT well enough
that we're going to go to DAT-72 on a new server.  We're also going to use
the old server to keep a copy ready to go.  Maybe the new tape drive will be
cr at p.  Maybe we'll be even happier with it than we were with the DAT-3.
I'll probably know soon enough.

I wish you well with your DVD backups.

MEG

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert L Krawitz [mailto:rlk at alum.mit.edu] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2005 8:23 PM
To: mattg at timesucker.ne.client2.attbi.com
Cc: discuss at blu.org
Subject: Re: Backups was Restoring MBR - Solved


   From: "Matt Galster" <mattg at timesucker.ne.client2.attbi.com>
   Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 19:58:11 -0500

   I've had numerous heartbreaks with tapes over the years.  DAT
   proved least trouble, and AIT gave me fits on some winnt 4.0
   systems about five years ago.

I went through two DAT drives -- in very short order -- before giving up on
the format.  On my first (1994) computer I had one of those cheapie
cartridge drives.  The drive was reliable, but the media were expensive and
not terribly reliable.  DAT media are also very expensive by today's
standards; DVD's (and even large hard drives) are much cheaper.

   I'd really prefer multiple off-site copies to a HD than tape.
   Newer HDs have a much higher reliability than the older HDs had,
   and they blow away tape unless you go to drives that cost about the
   same as a new car.

Currently I use DVD's for backup.  It's rather time consuming, but it's
cheap.  It took 23 DVD's to back up my stock of images, not counting the
8-10 reburns I had to do (I was careful to use my fastest, but flakiest, DVD
drive to verify them; my experience is that if this drive can read a DVD
then just about anything can).  It's also a good transfer medium.

My concerns about using HD's to back up data is the cost and long-term
reliability (although perhaps if I'm using DVD's I shouldn't be talking
about that).  Perhaps I should rethink this at some point.

-- 
Robert Krawitz                                     <rlk at alum.mit.edu>

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