[ On Thursday, September 30, 1999 at 08:50:27 (+0200), Soren S. Jorvang wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: backup media
>
> On Thu, Sep 30, 1999 at 09:11:18AM +0300, Jukka Marin wrote:
> > I'd like to hear from other NetBSD users about good and reliable backup
> > systems.  Should I get another DAT drive or some 1/4" inch Tandberg that
> > a dealer recommended to me (and no-one else has ever heard about) or
> > just get a large disk and create tarballs on it every night?  The data
> > that needs backing up is valuable (to me, at least ;-)
> 
> The short answer is get a DLT drive if you can afford it.
> 
> DDS-n is cheap, especially the media, and has decent capacity,
> but it just doesn't compare to QIC or DLT in terms of reliability.

I wouldn't put QIC very high on the reliability ladder, though
my experience has been that it's not all that bad.

DLT is certainly one of the more common winners of the reliability war.

Tandberg's MLR drive technology (now apparently called the SLR32 and
SLR50) is similar to DLT (and perhaps slightly better in terms of
*drive* reliability since there are more moving parts in the replacable
cartridges instead of in the drive), and so far as I've seen it's
perhaps a bit cheaper than DLT.  I'm going by the manufacturer's product
reliability numbers, mind you (but they're so much higher than anything
else that even if they've fudged them a bit they're still better!).
(SLR32, aka QIC-5010DC, is, as far as I can tell, a parallel linear
recording format that serpentines several time across the tape thus they
get the capacity of 8mm or DLT and speed of DLT without the stupid
spinning head of helical scanning mechanism of 8mm/4mm).

Oddly enough Tandberg is trying to get their own share of the DLT market
now (they never really downplayed DLT before, mind you, just 8mm and 4mm).

The very last choice I would make if I could afford it would be 8mm or
4mm tape.  Unfortunately 8mm is exactly what I have!  ;-)  I couldn't
ignore the cost advantages of being able to buy a used EXB-210
rack-mount library and a used Eliant-820 drive for a total cost of a
tiny fraction of what I would have paid for the same equipment new (or
new DLT or MLR equivalent capacities!).

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

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