Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 11:17:42 -0400 From: Andrew Heybey <ath@bellcore.com> To: Gareth McCaughan <G.J.McCaughan@dpmms.cam.ac.uk> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: non-SCSI backup devices Message-ID: <199710141517.LAA22627@grapenuts.bellcore.com> In-Reply-To: Gareth McCaughan's message of Mon, 13 Oct 1997 23:51:45 %2B0100 References: <E0xKtKz-00012h-00@jay.dpmms.cam.ac.uk>
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>I need a backup device for my FreeBSD box. The data on it aren't >*immensely* valuable, so I don't want to be spending huge sums; > >Am I right in getting the impression that most of the startlingly >cheap recent backup devices aren't supported by FreeBSD? (This is >not a complaint; I presume the reason is that they involve nasty >proprietary protocols or something.) > >Is the Right Thing to forget about doing it on the cheap and buy >a SCSI card and a DAT drive? I just bought a computer (of my own, so I am not spending my employers money) and went through the same decision. I think that the choice is clear: the cheap tape drives are a) not well supported and b) the tapes cost an arm-and-a-leg. I saw a TR-4 with a floppy interface for ~$170, but if you buy half a dozen tapes at $25 you have almost doubled the price to $320. One of the online auction places is selling brand new Seagate DDS-1 DAT drives for about $230 or so and NCR SCSI controllers for $50-$60 (since it is an auction, it depends on how lucky you get). I took a risk and bought one of each for $240 + $70 (including $10 each for shipping). 90 meter DDS-1 tapes only cost $6 so the price (compared with the TR-4 above) for drive + controller + 6 tapes is about $340. For $20 more I got a tape drive which is better supported, runs faster and uses much cheaper media. Plus I got a SCSI controller out of the deal. The drive works fine and is faster (about 400kB/sec) than some other DDS-1 drives (the HP DDS-1s are about 180kB/sec). A 90m tape will hold 2G uncompressed. This drive does *not* do compression--use amanda. I bought the drive a week or so ago but I just checked today and www.onsale.com is still selling them now. They come with a one-year warrantee from Seagate. I haven't done extensive tests yet but a few tars and dumps/restores have worked fine. [Disclaimers & caveats: Not affiliated with onsale.com; I just gave them my credit card number and they sent me a tape drive. The NCR controller they are selling does not have a BIOS so if your motherboard BIOS doesn't have NCR support you won't be able to boot from it.] andrew
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