Backup Dilemma. Using Backup Tapes or Hard Drives?

[geckojohn]

Hey Everyone,

I work as an IT admin and we're looking at getting a new backup system, because our current backup tape system isn't enough for the amount of data that we need to backup.

One of my coworkers wants to implement a hard drive backup system. He thinks that it would be a good idea because hard drive data is cheaper and faster compared to backup tapes. It's also more flexible.

Has anyone ever used a hard drive backup system for a company on a daily basis? What do you think about this compared to using traditional backup tapes?

 

[MustISO]

Tape backups would be easier to store offsite. I depends on how secure you need the data to be.

 

[geckojohn]

Originally posted by: MustISO
Tape backups would be easier to store offsite. I depends on how secure you need the data to be.

We would be using removable hard drives and be placing them in a fire proof safe...

 

[iamwiz82]

what happens if you drop the HDD? I know our DLT tapes can sustain alot more damage than a HDD.

 

[vi edit]

I use both. Backup data to HD, and also to tape. HD backup is much faster and easier to retrieve data from. But, tape is much, much, much more cost effective, easier to store, less volatile, and isn't as prone to failure.

 

[geckojohn]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
I use both. Backup data to HD, and also to tape. HD backup is much faster and easier to retrieve data from. But, tape is much, much, much more cost effective, easier to store, less volatile, and isn't as prone to failure.

Are you sure that tape is much more cost effective? How so? It seems like the price per megabyte for hard drives is cheaper than typical backup tapes.

 

[Kilrsat]

We use a tape library to backup ~700GB nightly (and growing, should be pushing 1TB in a few months).

Using tapes we have on hand normally the previous 20 nights, plus we take the sets from the 1st and the 15th and store them offsite for longer archiving. The system itself uses LTO2 tapes (200/400GB each) which I believe our cost is ~$100 each.

For our needs (the fact that we need to have the archival history) the cost of a disk backup system far exceeded the cost of tape. Yes, disk based systems are faster to retrieve from (8min overhead when retrieving a single file in our system), but most of our small restores are completed in under 15min which we deemed was acceptable.

If you're dealing with something small (<200GB) where you really only need 1 copy on hand, with the occassional offsite backup, disk may make sense. However for the larger jobs, tape still is the way to go.

/*Edit a few details*/
Storage system, 1TB raw NAS & 2TB raw SAN + 2 servers with ~100GB each.
Backup system: Dell 132T LTO2 Tape library (dual drives) + Dell 128T LTO tape library (single drive) (only used for backing up MSSQL stuff).
132T Stores 24 LTO2 tapes (4800/9600GB)
128T stores 20 LTO tapes (2000/4000GB)

The cost of disk systems that store that much is insane, we know because we have large storage systems already and are looking at expanding.

With some creative load balancing of the backup jobs, we have the entire set backedup and verified within 10 hours of starting.

 

[SonicFlux]

geckojohn, need more info about your company to better answer your question.

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: geckojohn

Originally posted by: vi_edit
I use both. Backup data to HD, and also to tape. HD backup is much faster and easier to retrieve data from. But, tape is much, much, much more cost effective, easier to store, less volatile, and isn't as prone to failure.

Are you sure that tape is much more cost effective? How so? It seems like the price per megabyte for hard drives is cheaper than typical backup tapes.

Well, I can get 400 gigs(10 40 gig tapes) of DDS4 tape storage for around $100. That's 2 business weeks worth of storage. I use about 30 gig of the 40 gig nightly.

There's no way I could get 10 30 gig HD's for under $100.

 

[geckojohn]

Oh, i see what you mean. That is way cheaper.

 

[Electric Amish]

Originally posted by: geckojohn
Oh, i see what you mean. That is way cheaper.

...and they won't scramble if you drop them.

You could look into DVD burning jukeboxes as well, though they run several thousand dollars.

 

[wetobasura]

I work for a company that sells external hard drives. Can't count the # of times someone has called me because the hard drive crashed with all of their "backups" on it. I would not trust a HDD for backup. If it is not that much information I would look more towards a DVD backup, or stick with the tape

 

[Soybomb]

I keep a mirror online thats updated every hour or nightly depending on the data. Thats handy, but if you want a "real" backup you need tapes (at least in my opinion that i'm sure some will disagree with) Much more durable if nothing else.

 

[Nitemare]

Mirrored hard drives for redundacy and read performance. Weekly backup's to tapes (stored off site)

 

[Ogg]

Originally posted by: Nitemare
Mirrored hard drives for redundacy and read performance. Weekly backup's to tapes (stored off site)

yep same here

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: Nitemare
Mirrored hard drives for redundacy and read performance. Weekly backup's to tapes (stored off site)

Yep! It's the only way to go, IMO.

 

[Electric Amish]

Originally posted by: Muadib

Originally posted by: Nitemare
Mirrored hard drives for redundacy and read performance. Weekly backup's to tapes (stored off site)

Yep! It's the only way to go, IMO.

Ours are RAID 5 (Striped with parity), but yeah.

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: Electric Amish

Originally posted by: Muadib

Originally posted by: Nitemare
Mirrored hard drives for redundacy and read performance. Weekly backup's to tapes (stored off site)

Yep! It's the only way to go, IMO.

Ours are RAID 5 (Striped with parity), but yeah.

Raid 1+0 here

 

[Confused]

3x 18gb 15k SCSI Raid 5, with a hot spare. Monday-Thursday nightly backups to 40/20GB DDS4 tapes, plus 3 Friday backups, rotated on (obviously) a 3 week rotation.

That's just the Novell server. The Alpha server has 9GB 10k SCSI RAID1, along with 20/10GB DDS3 tapes on a Monday-Saturday rotation.

Stored in fireproof safe in another building.


Confused

 

[FoBoT]

hard drives, tape isn't cost effective unless you are talking datacenter type stuff costing many $1000's of dollars

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
hard drives, tape isn't cost effective unless you are talking datacenter type stuff costing many $1000's of dollars

And still be removable for off site storage?

 

[amcdonald]

I use a local raid5 backup with dailydifferential+weeklyfull tapes kept offsite.

 

[selene]

My site recently upgraded to a dual drive Quantum M1500 SDLT 320. Originally on a 20/40 DLT IV.
I use both.

I have a backup server using Backup 2 Disk (veritas). 3 Seagate Baracudda 180 GB in RAID 5 format = 260 GB.

My daily backup includes 45GB Exchange - no lost option, full backup, 126GB Files, 18GB SQL Database.


Basically weekends, we make a full backup of everything. All 3 above and move the tape to off site.

Weekdays, we backup 45 GB exchange daily to disk. Increment files (small amount). Full SQL DB 6 times a day to both disk and Tape.

Disk backup for 18 gb sql @ 3.5 min
Tape backup for 18 gb sql @ 10 min