[ILUG] Cheap tape drives

[Rick Moen]

Quoting kevin lyda (kevin at suberic.net):

> however, i've had over 10 years of "backing up to disks is not backing
> up."  it seems to me though that tape tech is not keeping up.

It isn't, is it?  Not unless you have a lot of money for DLT, AIT, tape 
libraries, and such.

Duplicating onto additional hard drives could be satisfactory in a way,
if you have the drives on hot-swap trays.  Otherwise, the same thief or 
fire that nabs the main system gets the "backup".  Part of the point of 
tape backup is not just durability but also the possibility of off-site
storage.

And, of course, hard drives _seem_ cheap and practical until you
consider not just the hot swap problem but also the fact that it doesn't 
scale economically to multiple generations.

But the people who promote that option usually aren't serious about
generational backup, anyway -- same as the crowd that used to promote
Colorado Jumbo / QIC because high tape cost doesn't matter if you only
ever use two tapes.

-- 
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