Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 11:24:17 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: patl@phoenix.volant.org Cc: Arcady Genkin <a.genkin@utoronto.ca>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why use tape for backups? (was: backup method reccommendation?) Message-ID: <19991011112417.S78191@freebie.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <ML-3.4.939605615.2767.patl@asimov> References: <87iu4etzlp.fsf_-_@main.wgaf.net> <ML-3.4.939605615.2767.patl@asimov>
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On Sunday, 10 October 1999 at 18:33:35 -0700, patl@phoenix.volant.org wrote: > On 10-Oct-99 at 18:05, Arcady Genkin (a.genkin@utoronto.ca) wrote: >> This discussion of backups to tape reminded me that I have always >> wondered, why do some people chose tape as backup solution for desktop >> pc's. >> >> It seems to me that it's much cheaper, faster, and more reliable to >> just buy another hard drive and dedicate it for backups. >> >> Is there any reasons tapes are a better choice? > > A second disk gets you only one generation of backup. And if > something catastrophic happens during the backup, it may be > corrupted too leaving you with -no- backup. Well, that can happen with tapes, too. > If you want multiple generations; and/or have many disks or systems > to backup, you can't beat the price per bit or reliability of tape. This used to be the correct answer. I'm no longer sure it is. Certainly I think that the current generation of tape units is *much* less reliable than hard disk. The media are cheaper, but when I consider the number of DDS drives I wore out doing regular daily backups, I think that backing up to disk might have been cheaper. Greg -- When replying to this message, please copy the original recipients. For more information, see http://www.lemis.com/questions.html See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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