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Don't overlook tape backups

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Are tape backups part of your organization's disaster recovery plan? Have you designated a specific employee to be responsible for managing and testing backups? Share your comments about including tape backups in your DR plan, as discussed in the Nov. 25 Disaster Recovery e-newsletter.

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11 replies

by jill

As a network administrator of small businesses, tape backups are the foundation for my disaster recovery plans. Tape backups provide a cost effective way of recovering lost data, usually deleted by accident by a user. Tape backups have also provided me a way of resotring file servers that have "died", crash or become so currupt that they require a complete hard drive format an re-installation of the operating system. Because small businesses don't have the resouces, financial or manpower, a lot of the alternitive backup systems are not an option. But tape bakups fill the bill.

by mgordon

We have gone through several different formats; starting with the ancient QIC40 and QIC80 tapes, Travan, Ditto, Exabyte. Each time we need more capacity we change format entirely and this creates a readability problem for the old tapes. Most of our data doesn't need deep archiving. That which does need long term retrievability we put on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM, formats that appear to be considerably more stable than tape. That being said, it appears that the DLT/SDLT tape format has a fairly long format lifespan; tapes you make today may still be useable in the 5 to 7 year storage requirement of certain legal documents. We keep around the old equipment for as long as practical, but quite frankly, if someone demanded recovery from a QIC40 tape, what would you do? At home, I had an old Win95 box with a QIC80 tape drive in it. Before it gave up the ghost I transferred all those tapes to CD-ROM.

Tape is important in the scenario that it often takes weeks or months for staff to discover they've destroyed a file. You must be able to go back in time and I think nothing surpasses tape in that ability.

by frnt9

Likewise, tape backups have saved me on more that one occasion. I am also the network admin for a small business. Tape backups are a must everyday. There have been times when the backup hasn't worked. Luckily, my people are understanding and worked around the date they needed. But I wouldn't have it any other way but to have daily tape backups.

by hal 9000

Real alternative for Tape it has the ability to store vast amounts of data in an easily transported package and with auto loaders is is ideal backup means.

Even with the advent of DVDR this is still not a viable alternative backup methoid as there is a limit on storage capacity and the ability to actually use the equipment but it is faster for the same amount of data to store so for fast backup's DVDr/w might be a quick fix but tape still means that you have a stable system when used. Its only draw back is time required and this is only an issue in really small companies who don't have at least 1 full time computer person in house.

by jm091

Tape Backups are really nice to have & do an excellent job on keeping your system files backed up. We use to use them over the years because they are dependable.

The one big problem today is that they have doubled in price. The average cost of a tape backup today is about $500.00 which is close to a Jazz Drive. Also the tapes for these units are expensive too. The money you spend for one of these units with the tape cartridages is about half the price of a computer if not more. Thats why only big companies & corporations usually buy them. Most families or small businesses cannot afford them.

However there are other peripherials you can buy for a home or small business that is only a fraction of the cost of a tape backup. I recommend an external hard drive.

We use Maxtor drives with fire wire connections. They are fast & very reliable & run about 151.00 depending on the name brand & the size you need.

So if you are looking for a good dependable peripherial to back up your computer information at a very reasobable price, check out an external hard drive. You will be glad you did.

by hal 9000

About these Maxator HDD's as they have proved unrealible foe the good old Apples. This may be something to keep in mind as the firewire seems to have a few problems in this area but otherwise there OK provided that it is remembered to remove these from the premises over night as if they are left there and something happens like a break in or fire it then sought of defeats the original purpose for having them in the first place.

by mr. tinker

For smaller businesses, I have found that a DVD-RW has been as good if not better at providing the "snapshot-point-in-time" backup. Have also had less failures than with tape, and have found it to also be a better return on investment. BUT only with small business clients. Tape still wins out in the "huge backup" category.

by michael.brodock

Anyone who thinks disaster tolerance is disaster recovery does not know what they are talking about. I have to recover my main critical system every 6 months on different hardware with just what I have in my DR kit. As a side note, current as I write this a "fully" vendor supported system that is "critical" has been down for 8 days now. They said they had backups. They said they could do DR. They said... the new server will be here tomorrow and that was 3 days ago. They said... it will be here today. Yeah, right. DR is so very important and having good verifiable backups is the second most important task of any system admin, after the first which is... keeping the server running smoothly. If you can not restore your system, you should not be a system admin and tape backup is critical to that process, but it is not the only thing. Peace.

by jkohler

I am a Network Administrator for a small manufacturing company. We have been saved many times with tape backups. The only problem I have run into is that I find myself doing many restores from quarterly and yearly tapes, due to users deleting needed email and files. After doing this three or four times per tape, they would become unreadable. We have started making DVD backups of our quarterly tapes, which allows for faster restore times, and the sense of security of not having to worry if the media is still good.

by mariraju

I am actually working for Civil Aviation, i do agree with the points which have been mentioned in the article. My ideas are in with the same regard.
In our organization we do use tape backups, we too have specifically mentioned the procedures for tape backups in our disaster recovery plan. I think one must stick to the procedures of backing up the important data, if and only if they can afford. According to my experience it is also good to have snapshots and replications to recover the data from the last recovery point. In our organizaiton, there is no specific person who looks after changing the tapes. But, offcourse it is playing a vital role in our DR plans.

by chris..

Well I work for a smallish non-profit thus I don't have much in the way of big budget oprotunities for backup solutions.

Primarily I have DLT 40/80 drives at both of my sites, we also have external USB 2.0 drives that we use when one of the tape drives has issues. The backup 2 disk solution in BackupExec is pretty cool all said and told. I've also recently read about external SATA drives that are touting some serious I/O numbers. I'll have to see that to believe it though.

Another thing I am getting into is win2k DFS configurations for each of the three subnets I have. We have a moderatly sized file server at each of the three production sites and an equally sized backup server that also provides for Archiving. This lets me have a live instance of the critical shares and be able to complete backup to tape at any ol' time during the day.

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