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PToN
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join:2001-10-04
Houston, TX

PToN

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Tapes. Who still uses them?

Hello,

I am wondering who still using tapes for back ups. At the moment, our back up strategy is to keep the months data in a disk-to-disk back up, once the month is up, the data gets backed up to tape and the "vtapes" are reused for the new month.

This way we keep data on tapes for up to 1 year and 1 month of current data on "vtapes".

However, a lot of vendors keep wanting me to buy disk-to-disk solutions and i was wondering who have totally moved away from tapes.

Thanks

DarkLogix
Texan and Proud
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join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX

DarkLogix

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Well we still use tapes, in combination with a disk backup

first everything is backed up to the array on the backup server then on a schedule that data is backed up to tape

even our corp office uses tapes
Moffetts
join:2005-05-09
San Mateo, CA

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A lot of my clients have been moved over to offsite backups, but quite a few of them still use tapes. Mostly LTO2 and 3.
mikefxu
join:2004-10-05
Titusville, FL

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D2D2T here. Just bought a LTO-5 few months ago from a AIT-3. There is a certain amount of peace of mind having a physical copy of your data. Tapes are proven technology. I don't know if I can take an external hard drive and let it sit for 3 years and plug it in and it work. What I like about physical media is that we have a snapshot in time going years back, for us. D2D can be overwritten very easily. With a tape I would have to physically/purposely overwrite previous data.

drew
Radiant
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join:2002-07-10
Port Orchard, WA

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Our (new) tape library is the size of about two handicapped bathroom stalls.

DarkLogix
Texan and Proud
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join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX

DarkLogix

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WOW
thats what about the size of 16 server racks? or 24?

PToN
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join:2001-10-04
Houston, TX

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Darn..!! I once saw something like that, not as big though, but still was pretty impressive. It had a window and you could the robotic arm scanning and picking up the tape from the slot.

Modus
I hate smartassery on forums
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join:2005-05-02
us

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sadly enough we do and it takes days to backup. I started looking into more modern technologies which i have narrowed my list down to appassure and unitrends. After testing both i will moving away from tapes to a few unitrends appliances

Weasel
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join:2001-12-03
Minnesota

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D2D2D here.

The first D2D backs up technically to the same SAN (different RAID set), that's more for "oops I deleted my data" redundancy/primary RAID failure.

The second D2D is off site connected via fiber which provides disaster recovery options.

We're a fairly small school district so tapes off site locked up in a vault is a bit overkill for us.
jp10558
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join:2005-06-24
Willseyville, NY

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We use tape for backup. We're currently moving to D2D2T for archiving and disaster recovery images. 40GB disk image is expensive for 500 computers on spinning disk, pretty cheap for one off's / yearlys to a LTO-4 or 5 tape.

We are moving away from tape robots for current restores are from disk, but will manually load tapes for restoring decade old data ...

jester121
Premium Member
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL

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said by mikefxu:

There is a certain amount of peace of mind having a physical copy of your data. Tapes are proven technology. I don't know if I can take an external hard drive and let it sit for 3 years and plug it in and it work.

I have a lot more confidence that I'll be able to read a drive than a 5 year old tape drive that may have died, or may use SCSI interface that isn't compatible with any of my server architectures. Plenty goes wrong with tape media, and technology changes fast.
mikefxu
join:2004-10-05
Titusville, FL

2 edits

mikefxu

Member

said by jester121:

I have a lot more confidence that I'll be able to read a drive than a 5 year old tape drive that may have died, or may use SCSI interface that isn't compatible with any of my server architectures. Plenty goes wrong with tape media, and technology changes fast.

Went external SAS with new tape drive. I personally have more faith in a technology that was specifically developed with long term archival in mind. Good thing with LTO drives is that it reads 2 gens back and writes 1 gen back. So I think I should be good for another 5 years. The life cycle between LTO gens is 2-3 years. Media is rated up to 30 years archival life.

Little more insight on the hard drive versus tape: »serverfault.com/question ··· eriorate
ke4pym
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join:2004-07-24
Charlotte, NC

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We still use an enormous enterprise class tape backup system. With disk and dedupe sitting in front of it. Also, automated off site backups to the redundant system.

Tapes in big enterprises aren't going anywhere fast. And in those big systems, you don't generally have to worry about not being able to read a tape from 5 years ago.

Frank_IT
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join:2003-11-01
Montreal

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We still use LTO3/4, but we have san-to-san duplication, and datadomain for main backup
Storage_Guy
join:2006-04-30
Benton Harbor, MI

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We are all D2D using array replication to our DR datacenter. Once disk systems get large enough even with dedupe it gets hard to backup to tape and stay within a reasonable backup window.
mkaishar
join:2000-12-20
00000

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LTO5
D2D2T2Offsite

When you are managing 120TB+ of heterogenous data types, trying to squeeze that into a 20Mbit pipe to offsite is near impossible, even 100Mbit pipe, odds are it's not gonna be successful.

If you are in a datacenter with abundant connectivity, then I see it as a successful scenario, but most business locations are limited by that ISP's internet connection.

Tape is a good storage medium, people like to dismiss it, I thought the same way years ago, but with the right type of backup program, backup library and tape, you will be able to have a successful Backup & DR Plan.


PToN
Premium Member
join:2001-10-04
Houston, TX

PToN

Premium Member

We have LTO4 and we use it regularly to archive data.

I was just wondering since vendors only call about disk solutions now, they never mention any new tape solution so it may me wonder whether it was a dying medium, but obviously it is not.

On a side note; can anyone recommend an SCSI-to-iSCSI bridge?

Thanks.
mikefxu
join:2004-10-05
Titusville, FL

mikefxu

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said by PToN:

can anyone recommend an SCSI-to-iSCSI bridge?

»communities.vmware.com/t ··· d/300658

Nightfall
My Goal Is To Deny Yours
MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI

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We are still using tape, but only for archival purposes. Everything we are doing now is going offsite to another SAN. Disk to disk backup is so much better than tape, thats for sure. Tape is still necessary for us at least for archival purposes.

Modus
I hate smartassery on forums
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join:2005-05-02
us

Modus

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If this was a few years back then i would agree but these days drives are cheap so i use removable drives that plug into a RXDA and archive the old drives. Reliability and speed are very important to me so that's why i went that route.

Exodus
Your Daddy
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join:2001-11-26
Earth

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Our tape library is about the size of a grocery aisle. It's completely sealed off, but there are windows on either side to peer at the magic. I'd say it's probably at least 50+ feet long. A machine navigates through the various tapes, placing them in slots, or placing them in the repository to be collected and shipped off-site.
Exodus

Exodus

Premium Member

I just checked. Our tape library is the width 10 ten rack closets stacked side by side. They're deeper than regular closets by 6-12 inches, but about the same width. They're a little over six feet tall, by my estimates.

DarkLogix
Texan and Proud
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join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX

DarkLogix

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Thats no where near the size of a "grocery aisle"

Though yes large

Exodus
Your Daddy
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join:2001-11-26
Earth

Exodus

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Meh. It felt like it until I went out and counted. Anyone want to tell me the rough size of a raised floor tile?

DarkLogix
Texan and Proud
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join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX

DarkLogix

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2ft x 2ft square, or atleast that was the size at the last place I was that had them

DrStrange
Technically feasible
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join:2001-07-23
Bristol, CT

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Let me know if anybody needs a spare SCSI DDS3 drive.
microphone
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join:2009-04-29
Parkville, MD

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Using LTO-4 here. Despite claims from the other IT person that tapes are unreliable and that we should backup to portable hard drives (really?), I held my ground and managed to convince my superiors to use tape.
merfyman
join:2009-10-28

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we use tapes, got an small HP autoloader that can store 8 tapes, I swap them weekly.

Not whizzbang or fancy but it gets the job done.
mikkopel
join:2002-10-25
Haverstraw, NY

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said by microphone:

Using LTO-4 here. Despite claims from the other IT person that tapes are unreliable and that we should backup to portable hard drives (really?), I held my ground and managed to convince my superiors to use tape.

My sentiments exactly. Sure, I have other means of backup, but the LTO-4 tape is the last line of defense against the worst scenarios.

They're resilient, cheap, compact, and yes, reliable.