Comments

kentwolf wrote on 11/24/2007, 3:20 PM
I am not even sure if they make it anymore, but I would definitely avoid anything HP having to do with Travan tape backups.

That was unquestionably the most unreliable backup media I ever saw. One would do a backup only to find shortly thereafter the backup on tape was corrupted.

It was so bad that HP refunded all (100%) of my money spent on the drives and tapes even after I used it for over a year.

The best tape backup I saw was by OnTrack. Large tape capacity, fast backups, but the company went out of business twice.

I have since switched to hard drive backups with Retrospect. Excellent back up software.
kronos78 wrote on 11/24/2007, 3:33 PM
Retrospect in my experience is perfect for backing up anything to tape. As far as storage hardware and media I'd suggest this AIT-5 tape drive:

http://b2b.sony.com/Solutions/subcategory/storage/branded-tape/AIT_Drives/AIT-5

Or if the budget allows this drive that holds 8 tapes:

http://b2b.sony.com/Solutions/subcategory/storage/branded-tape/AIT_Libraries/Desktop_Libraries

I've worked with the latter and it is excellent. Of course you cold go with the cheaper AIT-3 or AIT-4 versions, but you wouldn't get the 400 GB storage per tape.

Hope this helps.
BigBadBz wrote on 11/24/2007, 4:49 PM
Bjtap:

How long are you defining "long lasting" to be? Tape can last a long time (20 years +), but you have to keep a drive around too if you expect to have any chance of recovering the material. I was a tape backup guy as well, but have since switched to redundant hard drive backups - I was tired of the slow speed and having to change media. IF I had to choose tape, I would go with an "open" standard such as LTO - which gives at least two generations on compatability. But this ends up being many $$$. I do concur with the others on the use of Retrospect - not necessarily the friendliest interface, but the backup clients available for many platforms and the reliability is very good.

Good luck in your hunt.
farss wrote on 11/24/2007, 8:59 PM
As others have said the LTO tape system is an industry standard so expect it to be around for a long time. However it is expensive.

Just how much is a "LOT"?

Still the best long term and cheapest backup / archival media is gold DVDs (MAM). Around $3 / 4GB with a tested life of over 100 years is pretty dang good. One such DVD can hold 20 minutes of DV25 and a heck of a lot of photos.

Bob.
GlennChan wrote on 11/24/2007, 9:26 PM
Around $3 / 4GB with a tested life of over 100 years is pretty dang good.
Er... a tested life of over 100 years is not possible unless it was made 100 years ago??

DVDs look like a nightmare to burn + catalog in my opinion (but I haven't tried... so take that with a grain of salt).
farss wrote on 11/24/2007, 10:17 PM
Accelerated age testing is reliable (and expensive).
Interpolating from theresults we can predict a life expectancy of 100 to 150 years.
There's a study here by the NIST and there's another by National Archives that I cannot find at the moment which from memory shows how those figures are interpolated. Should mention though that this is under archival storage conditions. Treat any media badly and all bets are off. This kind of media that uses pure gold for the reflective layer is not suitable for general use as the lower reflectivity means the disk may not play in most STB players, the idea is you lock the disks away safely and make copies for general use.

If you want the very best optical media you can buy CD ROMs certified for storing medical records. These are individually tested but at $12 each I've passed on them.

Bob.