SUMMARY: Which Backup Device to buy?

From: Andrew Watkins (andrew@dcs.bbk.ac.uk)
Date: Tue Feb 16 1999 - 05:56:09 CST


Hello,
My question was asking for details about which backup device I should get
and as always the response was great.

League Table Good Bad Speed comments
                Votes Vote
                  (people) MB/s
DLT 13 0 Most Expensive
  DLT 4000 2 1.5 No longer available
  DLT 4700 2 1 1.5
  DLT 7000 8 0 5.0
  
4mm DSS 1 3 2.0

AIM 8mm 3 1 3.0 will read all old 8mm
Exabyte 8mm 4 1 3.0
DAT 0 1 not reliable

The general feeling is that DLT is the best system even though they are more
expensive, but as someone pointed out "Don't be mean when it comes to backups!"
One warning with DLT systems is that you may get bandwidth problems if you are dump
clients on a slow network.

- "Just a little known comment about the 7000/4000 drives.
Unless you have a 100/[half or full] network don't even bother
with the 7000 drive.. Most of what will get dumped to tape will be 0's
while the dump waits for data to come in over the network."

Mammoth 8mm drives seem to be very popular and I have had not to many
problems with 8mm tapes, but be warned that AME drives will need cleaning
if you read a non-AME tape in it, before it can use an AME tape.

I think I will try to go for the DLT system since I can get more data
on one tape (35-70GB), but if my boss tells me that money does make a difference
I will stick with good old 8mm tapes.

Thanks to
 "Marc L. Summers-SysAdmin" <marcs@tdd.hbo.nec.com>
 martin@stavanger.geoquest.slb.com (Martin Oksnevad)
 Stefan Voss <s.voss@terradata.de>
 "D. Redmond" <dale@ccny.com>
 "RICARDO RAMOS" <rramos@minfin.gob.gt>
 Matt Reynolds <Matt.Reynolds@aztek-eng.com>
 aaronb@dtn.com
 vpopa@sms.mc.xerox.com (Val)
 Michael Hocke <michaelh@slmd.com>
 Shouben Zhou <zshouben@icase.edu>
 "Sam Nelson" <Sam.Nelson@cs.stir.ac.uk>
 Chad Price <cprice@molbio.unmc.edu>
 "Ken Farmer" <kfarmer@farmer.org>
 Brian Styles <brian.styles@mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk>
 Phil Scarr <prscarr@greymouser.com>
 "Rodney C. Marable" <marable@netgen.com>
 Bismark Espinoza <bismark@alta.jpl.nasa.gov>
 "Brooke King (6532)" <jbking@sandia.gov>
 "Robert L. Bailey" <rlb@cruiser.engin.umb.edu>
 "Peter L. Wargo" <plw@ncgr.org>
 sam.vilain@nz.unisys.com
 Dale Shaw <Dale.Shaw@select.com.au>
 John DiMarco <jdd@cs.toronto.edu>
 "Carsten B. Knudsen" <cbk@terma.dk>
 Rich Kulawiec <rsk@gsp.org>
 Chirag Patel <chirag@atl.meitca.com>
 "Rodney Wines" <Rodney.Wines@ahqps.alcatel.fr>

Andrew Watkins



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