# Suggestions for Tape Backup Device?

## OdinsDream

I'm interested in getting a tape backup device. It could be IDE or SCSI, but I'm not sure which brand to get, or tape type. I'm looking for something in the 10-20GB native storage capacity range.

If anyone has suggestions of tape drives that are simple to work with minimal extra software, I'd greatly appreciate hearing from you!

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## Corona688

I've got a Seagate Travan TapeStor and it works fine with Linux.  It's got 10GB capacity(20 compressed they say, but only under ideal conditions).  It's USB, and acts like a ordinary SCSI tape drive when detected, /dev/st0.  I don't use it much because I've found DVD-R storage much handier and cheaper, but if tape's what you really want, it'll do.

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## Corona688

Done abit of experimenting, and gotten my Seagate Travan TapeStor working again.  It needs the modules 'usb-storage' and 'st' to work.  And don't do as I did, make sure you TURN IT ON before trying to use it.   :Razz: 

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## OdinsDream

It seems some people are quick to ask why anyone would use tape backup anymore with options like DVDR available. Yet, I can't help but feel more at peace with data on a tape than on optical media. Maybe I don't need to feel this way, but it just seems like a much more reliable option for permanent archives, things that I'd want to drop off at a bank in my safe-deposit box, for instance, and that I know I'll be able to read in the future.

I mean I still have tape drives from a decade ago that work, and not that I expect DVDs to become obsolete, but I do worry that a recordable disc may not last.

How about reliability?

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## Corona688

Keep in mind you're speaking to someone who HAS a tape drive but doesn't use it much.  They're noisy, slow, difficult to verify, and inevitably wear out due to head/tape friction.  And I mean REALLY slow - I started doing a tape backup when I finished my last post, and it might go for hours yet.  Dropping a tape cartridge can be an interesting experience, as well.

You may have tape DRIVES from a decade ago that work, but do you have TAPES from a decade ago that work?  That's the real question.

For raw reliability, Travan tapes aren't the best.  They're simply affordable.  For REALLY good secure stuff, look into the hyperexpensive DAT stuff available.

Personally, a DVD strikes me as a lot more reliable than a tape.  Tapes flop, shift, can be overwritten by accident, and can be scrambled just by dropping 'em.  Put 'em near a monitor or big speakers and they're dead.  A DVD is a lot more solid.  If you're keeping them in a safety deposit box, they ought to keep fairly well too.

The real killer, though, is cost.  You can get 250GB of storage in a $50 stack of DVDs, or 10GB of storage on one $40 tape.  If you're paranoid you can make 5 copies of your DVD backups and STILL save time and money compared to tapes!

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## Corona688

Ack.  I accidentally tapped the tape drive while doing a backup, and it ruined the whole tape and the whole backup.

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## Maffuster

At work, we mostly use Seagate DAT and Sony AIT systems, and I must say, I love em both.

You DO have to know how to use them properly, and clean them regularly, but I wouldn't backup to anything else but tape.

Obviously most of the people in this thread are talking about backup for personal systems, and not for large servers.  The price of a basic Seagate DAT is small compared to the labour required to burn a 25GB backup onto dvd's 5 days a week.

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## legggo

Please, is anybody running this tape (Sony AIT-2) with 2.6 kernel? I do have 2.6.14r5, anything neccessary, AIT is not detected (hard discs are). It's a HP ProLiant box. No tape recognized, no errors in dmesg.

Thanks

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## pksings

I have an HP tape changer and had to enable multiple lun scanning per each scsi id. It's a kernel option under scsi, which of course requires a kernel or at least a module rebuild.

PK

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## oraldlight

Two prong question:

1)  What tape device would you recommend for personal server use (1tb file server, 40% full)?

2)  What tape device cwould you recommend for BUSINESS use? (300gb, 70% full)?

Or are there other devices that can serve this purpose that I'm not mentioning (dvd)??

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## yottabit

I have used DAT/DDS drives for years now on my personal server (which contains my website, nearly 12,000 photographs in a database, my company website, some vhosting I'm doing for some friends and other companies, and about 40 e-mail accounts).

I started with a DDS-2 (4 GB native capacity) years ago with a Sony DDS2 SCSI 8-bit drive I bought used for cheap on eBay. The tapes were cheap cheap cheap cuz they were so ancient.

Next I moved to an IBM-branded Seagate (later Seagate's mag media division became Certance, and then finally Quantum now) DDS-3 SCSI 8-bit drive with 12 GB native capacity. I used this one for years and then accidentally blew up the drive when messing around in the case while the system was on.. I accidentally tried to insert the power connector upside down (it's backward from normal drives) and it shorted the 5V & 12V... poof.  :Smile: 

Now I'm using a Seagate/Certance/Quantum DDS-4 SCSI 16-bit drive (20 GB native capacity).

I use Bacula backup software to make incremental backups every week, and full backups once per month. I have nearly 80 GB of data being backed up now.

Tape is very stable (when drive is cleaned per recommendations and kept in a stable environment) and lasts virtually forever.

The cons: drives are very expensive, tapes can be expensive (compared with the low cost of consumer hard drives these days), SCSI host controllers are expensive, SCSI interface cables are expensive, and the drives are very slow.

On the other hand, I've had this SCSI stuff for a very long time, so all I needed was the drive and tapes. If I had to start from scratch today, I would probably go with an external (or internal--whatever you prefer) 500 GB Hitachi SATA drive and use that as the backup media... super quick, tons of room.

Sure consumer hard disks (ATA/SATA) may not be as reliable as SCSI disks, but most people don't use SCSI disks these days (even in newer servers, obviously depending on application). Even if your server uses SCSI disks, using SATA disks for backup is fine since it's only backup and not being accessed 24/7. 

If you wanted to be ultra safe you would make sure your working disks, whether SCSI or ATA/SATA, are in a RAID array, and then you could even make your backup disks into a RAID array...

The latest incarnation of my server has: 2x 80 GB Hitachi SATA (Linux RAID-1), 2x 250 GB Hitachi SATA (Linux RAID-0), Seagate/Certance/Quantum DDS-4 SCSI TBU.

I've also just built a new server for starting up a photo backup/sharing service. It's only a 1U rackmount, so very tiny. I have it populated with 4x Hitachi 500 GB SATA (Linux RAID-5), and I'll be doing an automated off-site backup via Bacula to my house every week or so.

Remember that having a fault-tolerant RAID setup doesn't protect from user mistakes, controller failures, etc. I have more than once had the Linux software RAID driver corrupt a good disk while the other disk in a mirror was failing...

And of course my last thought here... optical disks (CD-R/RW, DVD+/-R/RW) are not as reliable as most folks seem to think. Printed/pressed CDs (the silver type you buy retail) are very reliable and would last virtually forever if kept in the right environment. However, writeable disks are based on burning an organic dye under the plastic surface of the disk... this organic dye will break down over time, even without accelerated degradation due to UV/sunlight. The very best optical media, written at 1x (the faster the writing speed, the less the reliability), will only last a few years if you're lucky... I have some disks written back in the 90s that are still readable, but most are not. And by contrast, the very cheap off-brand disks you can buy have a dye layer so thin you can actually see through the disk (!!!), and sometimes only last a matter of weeks!!!

You can't beat tape for reliability and price (on the high side of course), and in my opinion, you can't beat regular consumer hard drives--these days--for capacity, speed, and price (on the low side).

Cheers.

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