jo0e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jared M. Oberhaus) (06/03/91)
Has anyone had any experience with large (gigabyte and up) tape drives for the Mac? We are considering a backup system, definitely using Retrospect with Retrospect Remote so we can back up all 40 Macs every night, or week, or whenever. We would like to have a 3 gig drive-definitely no less than 2. We have a 340 meg server, about 30 machines with about 20 megs, and about 10 machines with 80 megs. This makes 1.74 gigs RIGHT NOW. We'll probably soon upgrade all the 20 meg machines with 40 meg drives which makes 2.34 gigs. I have heard that DAT drives (is that synonymous with 4mm?) are better and the tapes last longer because they don't travel as far around the head as 8mm drives. What about compression? Can I buy a DAT now that stores a whole lot? Like 5 or 10 gigs? What if I buy one now that stores 2? Can I get some sort of ROM, hardware, or software upgrade for it so it can compress data and store larger amounts of data? I've seen prices for drives such as the WangDAT (about $2600 for 3 gigs) and ExaByte DAT (about $2200 for 2.2 gigs). What would the best price be for something like this? What would be the best price for tape cartridges and where would I get the best quality? Your responses are greatly appreciated! How 'bout them Penguins! (Pittsburgh Penguins-Stanley Cup champions-1991)
truesdel@ics.uci.edu (Scott Truesdell) (06/14/91)
In <ocGI0qa00Uh_I5T01y@andrew.cmu.edu> jo0e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jared M. Oberhaus) writes: >Has anyone had any experience with large (gigabyte and up) tape drives >for the Mac? I am using an Exabyte subsystem (8mm video tape) which holds 2.2gig. I purchased from Relax Technology based on an ad in MacWEEK and a phone conversation with Relax. After 3 weeks I am very pleased with the performance. I considered other media but went with the Exabyte because our department has several used for Unix backups so we have redundant hardware in case of failure. We can also buy larger quantities of tapes though at approx $6 per tape... who cares! The Sony metal seem to be the preferred tape. Part # P6-120MP. I am backing up 25 devices, many with 100MB drives. I have set up the backups to do half the net each night, resting on Sunday. This makes the backup go faster and allows Retrospect to keep more sessions before I need to start afresh. >I have heard that DAT drives (is that synonymous with 4mm?) are better >and the tapes last longer because they don't travel as far around the >head as 8mm drives. I had heard this also, but the Exabytes on our Unix(tm) systems seem quite reliable and are used very heavily so, for the redundancy, I decided to stick with the 8mm. >I've seen prices for drives such as [...] ExaByte DAT (about $2200 >for 2.2 gigs). Sounds good. >What would be the best price for tape >cartridges and where would I get the best quality? We get our Sony tapes at "Price Club", a member discount warehouse that sells everything from washing machines to cantalopes. Other experiences: If you will be backing up more than one network, move the drive to the target net for each backup. It makes a big speed difference. Retrospect does VERY speedy incrementals! Several users needed to have a schedule taped to their monitors to tell them which nights to leave their Macs on. Several professors wanted their backups encrypted even though unauthorized access to their desktop Macs is easier than unauthorized access to the backup system. It took me a week of fiddling with backup scripts to get them where I thought was a good mix of speed, frequency, my convenience, etc. I still don't know if my setup is optimal, but at 10-20 minutes per incremental, who cares!? Since I got it all set up, it's a real no-brainer. The most difficult aspect of the routine is changing the tape once daily. Tough, huh? --scott -- Scott Truesdell