Looking for advice-tape v. magneto optical

[edeebg]

Our company is currently using tape backup on our server systems. It is very unreliable, and the media wears out after 1 or 2 uses.<br>

We are working in a NT 4.0 and SQL 7.0 environment, and require a backup of 2 gigs at a time, minimum. We are exploring the possibility of a magneto optical drive. Raid cases are out as they are not cost effective and the company does not wish to spend that amount of money.<br>

I would like possible recommendations for a good tape backup system, or your opinions on magneto optical drives and your recommendations for those. You may also email me at edeebg@aol.com<br>

Thanks<br>

 

[Scanner]

We have DAT, DLT and Optical backup solutions on our in-house systems right now. Of the three, the Optical solution is, by far, the most reliable.<br>
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The Optical drives that we use are from Hewlett Packard. The model we use is the HP5200ex and the platters are double-sided holding 2.6gig per side for a total of 5.2gig per platter.<br>
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At one time they had a 2.6gig total capacity model (HP2600ex), but I'm not sure if they produce it any longer.<br>
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As for reliability, they are great. I have some re-writable platters with more than 100k writes/erases/re-writes and they still have no bad sectors.<br>
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We also use HP80ex and HP360ex Jukeboxes, but if you didn't think the RAID solution was cost effective I seriously doubt that you'll want to invest in a Jukebox.<br>
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I hope this helps.

 

[OpenSys]

As already mentioned the magneto medium is pretty reliable but I am surprised to hear that your tape medium is wearing out after 1 or 2 uses, what is it? I have DLT4K, DLT7K and STK9840's with no problems like that, especially the DLT's (I haven't had the 9840's long enouhg to mention really) The DLT's are great no issues here, continuous backup of Engineering data and regular nightly mixes of full's and incrementals over Nt and Unix, I do also have a small STK robot system and have implenented a RAID system (software internal (mirrored) and a hardware external, (RAID 5)) If you actually work out the cost of ownership, media and robotics (if used!) A small RAID array isn't that much. Depends on how long you plan ahead for, I work on 5 years with around 250% data growth and at least on tape technology upgrade (our was the latest 9840 tape drives)