Tape Backup Prices

Christopher Browne cbbrowne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
Mon Nov 29 19:29:27 UTC 2010


On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 11:20 AM, Dave Germiquet
<davegermiquet-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Hello Fellow Tlugers,
> I am looking to purchase a Tape Backup, and am unsure the prices and good
> providers with cost for value. The tape backup is for a small non-profit
> organization. I will be using Bacula for the Tape Backups so it would have
> to be supported.
> Any suggestions that people might have would be appreciated.

I doubt compatibility is much of an issue anymore - any tape drives
you can get these days speak SCSI, and the "cheap proprietary WinPC
stuff" have gone away.

Good tape drives have always been expensive (e.g. - some number of
thousands of dollars), and good tapes have always been expensive (e.g.
- on the order of $100).

- DAT starts at ~ $600
- DLT starts at about $1K
- LTO starts at around $1K
- AIT starts around $3K

Tapes tend to be between $50 and $100, and you likely need to spend
nearly the price of the drive on tapes each year to have reasonably
fresh tapes if doing daily backups.

And you need a systematic scheme to get fragile tapes to some robust
offsite location.  (Consider that if someone drops a tape on the
floor, it's probably broken.)

For $3K I could buy a whole bunch of ADATA USB drives:
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=15_213_602&item_id=029207

I think I'd rather set up a large scale backup regimen like this using
USB disk drives than using tape.  Frankly, I expect it to be cheaper
and more readily verified.
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