I'd like your reccomendations for a sub-$1000.00 tape backup solution.

[mcveigh]

I want to decide on a solution to reccomend to people, I want some type of removable cartridge, with at least 20GB of storage.
so please don't say another hard drive or DVD-RW.
I'm leaning towards the VXA-1 from Ecris link to info. It's about $700.

What other options would you recommend, What backup software would you recommend?
I'm currently trying Veritas Backup exec.

It has to be Windows and Linux/Unix compatible!!!

 

[mcveigh]

anybody? how bout travan, dds4, onstream?

 

[gunf1ghter]

We use an Onstream 30GB (keep in mind that it's 15GB withoutcompression.. for a true 30GB worth of storage you should get the 50GB drive) drive here at my office to backup a small server that is used by some of the engineers to keep Visio network diagrams, etc on. The Windows Software is pretty good, does a good job with full/incremental backups. It's not the fastest thing in the world (USB 1.1) it takes about 10 hrs to backup and verify a 20 gb data partition.

I can't comment on Linux/UNIX support, but I see from their website that some drives do have Linux support.

 

[mcveigh]

bump

 

[gsaldivar]

Go to e-bay and search for "dds4"...

 

[gsaldivar]

I'd recommend Dantz Retrospect for the software...

 

[m2kewl]

I have a Sony 11000 20/40 DAT w/BackupExec, it rocks - no problems.

 

[Vincent]

I have the Ecrix drive. It works fine. I just use the Windows 2000 backup program. All I do is weekly full system backups and it works well enough. I haven't figured out how to use these backups to completely restore a system and I don't even know if this is possible.

The Onstream drive has been discontinued in the U.S., I believe. I remember reading in a newsgroup complaints from a backup software developer about poor quality of these drives.

The Ecrix drive was the best choice for me in terms of price and capacity when I bought it a couple years ago. I'm happy with it, although I'll be unhappy having to swap tapes when the 40GB+80GB hard drives I have fill up.

 

[bozo1]

<< I haven't figured out how to use these backups to completely restore a system and I don't even know if this is possible. >>


You reinstall your OS, you can just use the bare minimum configuration. Once that is done, do a complete restore including the registry. Voila

 

[Vincent]

<< You reinstall your OS, you can just use the bare minimum configuration. Once that is done, do a complete restore including the registry. Voila >>



Oh yeah? I always thought it would be a problem to try to do a "hot" restore of the registry on a system that's already running. I'll have to try this the next time my boot drive crashes (which I hope will be never). Thanks.

 

[HGC]

Slightly off-topic, but I would recommend redundant tapes. I had a tape eaten by the drive during restore and had to redo all my taxes.

 

[mcveigh]

interesting point ^


gsaldivar I thought dds4 was a dead end technology?