Comments on: A great example of why tapes don’t work http://blog.hosting365.com/2006/06/30/a-great-example-of-why-tapes-dont-work/ Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:42:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: Applepie Solutions Weblog » Blog Archive » Linux RAID solutions (Part II) http://blog.hosting365.com/2006/06/30/a-great-example-of-why-tapes-dont-work/#comment-1644 Applepie Solutions Weblog » Blog Archive » Linux RAID solutions (Part II) Mon, 18 Sep 2006 16:01:12 +0000 http://www.hosting365.com/blog/2006/06/30/a-great-example-of-why-tapes-dont-work/#comment-1644 [...] Nowadays, if you’re using SAN technology, you can normally take a snapshot of your data and copy it onto another part of your SAN array. Assuming you have enough storage, this is a good quick way of taking a reliable copy of your data. Of course, you may want to copy it onto another SAN at a remote location if you want a disaster-tolerant solution. A lot of commercial providers are starting to show up in this space, in Ireland we have companies like Central DataBank and Hosting365 (who wonder why anyone would use tape backup anymore). I guess there are pros and cons and I’d like to see a detailed cost-benefit analysis before I could definitively say that tape backup never makes sense - at least in countries like Ireland where broadband is still relatively expensive and the providers like to keep the Asymmetric in ADSL, it may not be economically viable to upload large amounts of data to a 3rd party backup provider. [...] [...] Nowadays, if you’re using SAN technology, you can normally take a snapshot of your data and copy it onto another part of your SAN array. Assuming you have enough storage, this is a good quick way of taking a reliable copy of your data. Of course, you may want to copy it onto another SAN at a remote location if you want a disaster-tolerant solution. A lot of commercial providers are starting to show up in this space, in Ireland we have companies like Central DataBank and Hosting365 (who wonder why anyone would use tape backup anymore). I guess there are pros and cons and I’d like to see a detailed cost-benefit analysis before I could definitively say that tape backup never makes sense - at least in countries like Ireland where broadband is still relatively expensive and the providers like to keep the Asymmetric in ADSL, it may not be economically viable to upload large amounts of data to a 3rd party backup provider. [...]

]]> By: Ed Byrne http://blog.hosting365.com/2006/06/30/a-great-example-of-why-tapes-dont-work/#comment-427 Ed Byrne Fri, 07 Jul 2006 13:20:05 +0000 http://www.hosting365.com/blog/2006/06/30/a-great-example-of-why-tapes-dont-work/#comment-427 Power and cooling are a minimal additional cost, and the advantages of automated off-site hard drive based backup I think far outweigh a non-technical SME's relience on tape-backup procedures. Also ... tapes wouldn't be great for a speedy disaster recovery! Power and cooling are a minimal additional cost, and the advantages of automated off-site hard drive based backup I think far outweigh a non-technical SME’s relience on tape-backup procedures.

Also … tapes wouldn’t be great for a speedy disaster recovery!

]]> By: Joe http://blog.hosting365.com/2006/06/30/a-great-example-of-why-tapes-dont-work/#comment-414 Joe Thu, 06 Jul 2006 13:40:46 +0000 http://www.hosting365.com/blog/2006/06/30/a-great-example-of-why-tapes-dont-work/#comment-414 However, on the plus side tapes don't require ongoing power and cooling requirements and can be easily transported. Concerned about theft? A reasonable cypher (bluefish?) can generally protect most business data adequately. A tape robot combined with LTO technology makes a pretty compelling backup engine if all you need is disaster recovery capability. However, on the plus side tapes don’t require ongoing power and cooling requirements and can be easily transported. Concerned about theft? A reasonable cypher (bluefish?) can generally protect most business data adequately. A tape robot combined with LTO technology makes a pretty compelling backup engine if all you need is disaster recovery capability.

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