[TriLUG] backup presentation questions - was [Trilug-announce]Meeting, Thursday May 13 - Linux Backup Strategies

[Ben Pitzer]

Mike,

You make a good point, and you're right, a presenter might not be able to
answer this question very well.  I realized that before I wrote the email,
but happily it's brought the topic up here.

As I see it, for SOHO/personal use, a tape drive is probably not the best
option, unfortunately.  While you found one that is adequate to your needs,
those types of deals are fairly rare, if my searches on eBay and other sites
are any indication.  The best I ever saw was a 20/40GB Seagate internal
Travan drive for $200, and tapes costing about $40 ea.  I almost got it, but
it was just out of reach for me in a realistic sense, as I just couldn't
quite justify $300 for backup hardware at the time (risk to cost ration
wasn't great enough yet, I suppose).  These days, the risk has grown, but so
have the costs, as I've seen them.

I've thought about a NAS solution, a tape drive, and even using DVD+/-RW for
backups, but the fact is that it's still pretty expensive to do external
backing up of all the data I'd need to back up.  And I'm talking about my
wife's business here, and all of her customer files and records, website,
email, etc.

Regards,
Ben Pitzer

---------------------------------------------

"Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
 --Ben Franklin--




> -----Original Message-----
> From: trilug-bounces at trilug.org [mailto:trilug-bounces at trilug.org]On
> Behalf Of Mike Johnson
> Sent: Monday, May 10, 2004 11:54 AM
> To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list
> Subject: Re: [TriLUG] backup presentation questions - was
> [Trilug-announce]Meeting, Thursday May 13 - Linux Backup Strategies
>
>
> Turnpike Man [turnpike420 at yahoo.com] wrote:
> > Ben, I can help with 1 example for your first question.  I just
> bought a new
> > Dell PE2600, included in that is a DLT drive.  The internal DLT
> 8000 drive
> > (which does 40/80GB DLT tapes) was $1000.  Each 40/80GB DLT
> tape was $30, and
> > since I have a 4 week rotation (tapes overwritten except last
> one gets saved
> > for a year) so I end up with 19 tapes getting overwritten in
> rotation, 13-14
> > tapes saved for a year, 1 tape at the end of the year forever,
> so 35 total
> > tapes was $1050.
>
> For personal use, the costs can be much lower.
>
> DLT 4000 external drive: $30
> DLT 20GB/40GB tapes, 5 ct: $20
>
> This was a drive I picked up at a surplus sale.  It'll actually only do
> 15GB/30GB, but the 20GB/40GB tapes are easier to find in the used
> market.  The tapes are used, but according to the seller, only once.
> Really, it doesn't matter unless they've been used hundreds of times.
>
> The original question is a tough one.  The answer is really 'how much do
> you want to spend based on how critical your data is'.  I'm not sure a
> presenter can answer that for you.  For me, the drive above is used to
> back up MP3's so I don't have to rip them again (well, it will be once I
> get off my ass and do something about it), so I'm not that concerned
> about the used tapes.  The drive will likely work forever.  This is
> where another difficulty comes with the question.  A Colorado Jumbo
> drive is way cheap, but won't stand up to the continued abuse that a DLT
> drive would.  Hell, a DDS (DAT) drive wouldn't survive what a DLT drive
> could take.
>
> It's not an easy question.  The answer truly is: 'how much do you want
> to spend'.
>
> Mike
> --
> "If life hands you lemons, YOU BLOW THOSE LEMONS TO BITS WITH
>  YOUR LASER CANNONS!" -- Brak
>
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