Tape Backup Prices

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 02:29:27PM -0500, Christopher Browne wrote:
> 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

DAT is crap (helical scan tapes don't last).
I think DLT is dead (replaced by LTO).
AIT is dead (again replaced by LTO) as far as I understand it.

So LTO is the only long term choice with a future that isn't crap.
They are seriously fast too.

> 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.)

Actually if it is in the case, an LTO tape is likely to survive that.
Might break the case, but I doubt the tape cartridge would suffer.
No heads in there after all (not like a harddisk).

> 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.

USB is simpler, and slower than tape.  USB is also much cheaper (if you
use magnetic disks).

-- 
Len Sorensen
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