From owner-freebsd-stable Sat Aug 1 12:29:38 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA12677 for freebsd-stable-outgoing; Sat, 1 Aug 1998 12:29:38 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from whizzo.transsys.com (whizzo.TransSys.COM [144.202.42.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA12662 for ; Sat, 1 Aug 1998 12:29:32 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from louie@whizzo.transsys.com) Received: from whizzo.transsys.com (localhost.transsys.com [127.0.0.1]) by whizzo.transsys.com (8.8.8/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA12685; Sat, 1 Aug 1998 15:28:03 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199808011928.PAA12685@whizzo.transsys.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0.2 2/24/98 To: Scott cc: Nathan Dorfman , Andrew Bromage , freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG From: "Louis A. Mamakos" Subject: Re: CD writers as a backup medium References: In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 01 Aug 1998 10:10:29 PDT." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sat, 01 Aug 1998 15:28:02 -0400 Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > tapes may be 4GB, but most of them are extremely slow compared to a CD-R. > Even some of the fastest tape drives aren't as fast as a 4x CD-R (last > time i checked). Tape drives are also a lot more expensive and the tapes > are EXTREMELY expensive. CD-R disk can be found for $1 or less if you have > a rebate. Tapes for my TR1 drive (old; never in use anymore) are $30 > each...and i have 5 tapes for them. So it really comes down to how much > money you have. > Sounds like you should have bought a DAT tape then. A DDS-2 drive (without compression) has a 326 kByte/s transfer rate; this will be somewhat larger if you've got compression enabled in the drive. So you'll have 4 GB uncompressed on a 90 meter tape and perhaps twice that with compression enabled. If this is large enough to hold your dump, then in some sense you don't really care what the transfer rate is if you don't have to swap media. I bought a reconditioned DDS-2 changer (that holds 4 or 12 tapes depending on the magazine) for a bit less than $400. Media is about $7-$12 depending on what you find. DDS-3 increases the capacity (and thus transfer rate) again. I think the media cost might be a wash between CD and DAT for bulk storage. The CD media is less clostly, but has a factor of about 3 or 4 less capacity. The DAT media is resuable - sure, you can get rewritable CD media, but now the cost is considerably higher. Clearly the Travan drives lose on a cost measure - the drives are cheap, but you go broke buying the media. louie To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message