Please recommend a tape drive...

[ltam]

Can someone please recommend an IDE tape drive? I've never installed or configured a tape drive before so the easier the better. Are there external ones?

I just saw an ad at Tigerdirect.ca for a USB external 250g harddrive selling for $115CDN. Are there still advantages to using tape drives? The cheapest 40G tape drive advertised is $571. Can someone give me some advice for this? What is the right decision?

Thanks in advance for your help.

:)

[psyklops]

will depend on what you want to do. is it for backup in the event of a recovery, or are you planning on 'archiving'? Disk will be quicker to recover from in case you lose a file(s), but tape will allow you to retrieve 'archived' or different versions of stuff that you've saved (i.e. music, movies, formal/legal documents) because the cost of storing 'archived' is cheaper over all.

With tapes you can store terabytes under your desk, on a shelf...in a safe under the house etc. With disk, you need to power it and have a connection to it... you could store USB drives :) in a safe under the house, but then why not use tapes if you're going to be doing that?

Here's a Quantum one:
http://www.quantum.com/Products/TapeDrives/DAT-DDS/DAT72/Index.aspx

Here's a HP one:
http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/dat72usb/index.html

[ltam]

will depend on what you want to do. is it for backup in the event of a recovery, or are you planning on 'archiving'? Disk will be quicker to recover from in case you lose a file(s), but tape will allow you to retrieve 'archived' or different versions of stuff that you've saved (i.e. music, movies, formal/legal documents) because the cost of storing 'archived' is cheaper over all.

With tapes you can store terabytes under your desk, on a shelf...in a safe under the house etc. With disk, you need to power it and have a connection to it... you could store USB drives :) in a safe under the house, but then why not use tapes if you're going to be doing that?

Here's a Quantum one:
http://www.quantum.com/Products/TapeDrives/DAT-DDS/DAT72/Index.aspx

Here's a HP one:
http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/dat72usb/index.html

It is meant for disaster recovery. Is it more reliable to backup with tapes? Burning DVD's is never always a sure thing. Could I use tar to backup on the inexpensive external USB hard drive? I'm more inclined towards tape as they can operate quite independently.


:)

[psyklops]

tapes will be faster if you're backing up large amounts of data - sequential rear/write. DVD's are versatile for backing up select files. If you're recovering a system back to a pre-defined state, you'll more than likely want to be coming off tape. If your system is already up and running (i.e. disaster recovered) you'll probably want to be updating files/folders etc. from DVD or USB drive.

The Quantum and HP drives listed are USB based and should therefore be recognised by FC. These drives are designed for servers so they'll support things like Suse and Redhat. You may want to check with the vendors as to whether they have specific drivers etc. however, I would imagine that it'd be just configuring SuSe and/or Redhat to recognise the tape drive over the USB connection.

Relaibility? Really depends on how and where you store your tapes as well. DAT tapes are still in use in many data centres today (typically used to load patches on machines etc. rather than backups - they use LTO, DLT and/or SDLT these days) - so they're a good robust technology. DVD's are good and better in some cases (depending on usage cases)... ultimately will depend on:

* what you want to backup (how important it is)
* how much you want to backup?
* How long you need to retain it?
* how quickly you need to restore?
* how often do you need to retrieve specific files.