From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Sep 3 12:58:53 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id MAA22180 for questions-outgoing; Tue, 3 Sep 1996 12:58:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from seagull.rtd.com (root@seagull.rtd.com [198.102.68.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id MAA22175 for ; Tue, 3 Sep 1996 12:58:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from dgy@localhost) by seagull.rtd.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id MAA14109; Tue, 3 Sep 1996 12:52:52 -0700 (MST) From: Don Yuniskis Message-Id: <199609031952.MAA14109@seagull.rtd.com> Subject: Re: Backup hardware recommendations? To: branson@widomaker.com (Branson Matheson) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1996 12:52:52 -0700 (MST) Cc: cshenton@it.hq.nasa.gov, questions@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: from "Branson Matheson" at Sep 3, 96 02:53:40 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk It seems that Branson Matheson said: > On Tue, 3 Sep 1996, Chris Shenton wrote: > > A disc failure on a friend's system recently got me paranoid. I've got > > a FreeBSD system with a couple gig, a SunOS box with 2 gig, and an > > Alpha which will probably have its NT lobotomized and replaced with > > NetBSD. Maybe 6GB now total. > > > > Any recommendations for backup hardware? 8mm, DAT, 4mm? Pros and cons? > > Price for media? My 150MB QIC drive is just too painful for this much > > stuff. > > I personally have used both the 8mm and the 4mm. I feel that the 4mm > is a good solution as it is now the one that most are using. Media is > moderately priced and it seems very stable. 8mm works great and I > have used it for many years with out any problem. The media is > cheaper than 4mm.. but you cannot store as much on a single tape. > DAT is bleeding edge.. and although seems to be stable.. I try to > stay away from that( besides it is bloody expensive per cart.. per > megs it is cheap.. but depends on how you do your backups. ) Carts > are really expensive... but store ALOT of data. I opted to go the DLT route recently. I was a bit nervous about all those moving parts in DAT drives. Also, capacity was an issue (and an autoloader would just mean even MORE moving parts!) The "norm" for DLT is now 10, 15 or 20G per cartridge (uncompressed) with the advertised compression rate bringing these to 20, 30 and 40GB. A cartridge is around $40. They're a bit larger than a stack of seven 3.5" floppies (and considerably heavier -- worth noting since dropping one the wrong way will toast it!). Backup rates are from 1 to 3 MB/sec (uncompressed) and double that if compression is "effective". But, getting a drive to spool requires lots of horsepower... :> They are very quiet. Need a full 5-1/4" bay for the drive. Of course, the "downside" is the cost -- figure $3500+ US. > > I had considered getting one of the 1GB "Jaz" drives but the media is > > about $125/slice and for that I can buy a new hard drive! :-( > > i have looked at this too.. but it believe that it is untested for > reliability and retention. Far too expensive in terms of $/MB. I could easily purchase 3 -- maybe 4 DLT tapes for that amount of money (and end up with 45 - 90G of storage space!) > For your software DEFINATELY look at amanda. It's free, It works > great.. and it scales very nicely. If you need any help with setup or > configuration, send me email or send to the amanda-questions list as > I monitor that as well. Amanda is a win if the transport is shared on a network. If you are backing up a bunch of different machines, you may wish to use other techniques (though AMANDA has been ported to a bunch of platforms...) --don