Tape drive options and suggestions

Jerry McAllister jerrymc at clunix.cl.msu.edu
Wed Jul 12 15:23:40 UTC 2006


> 
> Good morning all,
> 
> I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions as to a tape backup solution 
> that carries the most bang for the buck.  The ideal would be:
> 
> *  LTO-3
> * Works with Bacula or similar and 6.x
> * Autochanger
> * Ability to handle 30-40 heterogeneous servers of varying size

I have only had one LTO to work with so far in FreeBSD - an HP 350 - 
and have been very happy with it.  It is quite fast and we haven't
had any reliability problems yet.

We have also had good experiences with DLT, though it seems to not
be quite as fast.  But it has been reliable.

Here at the Commputer Center the main backup media is AIT and that
has been quite reliable, but I haven't had any speed comparison with
the others, nor have we had it on any FreeBSD system.

Of course, DAT is cheapest, but it has reliability and functionality
Problems.   We have had a lot of failures on any level DAT at or
above DDS-3.   It also seems to get weird and need to be completely
shut down with all power off the system (eg unplugged from the wall
and even the Ethernet connection) occasionally for a few minutes to
force it to reset.   This has occurred on several models, but not
all units.

> All suggestions and comments are appreciated and welcome.

So, LTO seems a good choice, followed by DLT.

As for software packages, I don't know of any I am happy with.   
I end up writing my own scripts using dump.    It is a little
clumsey but I don't have to jump through artifical and irrelevant
hoops that the package maker thought up just to make things look
big and important. 

////jerry

> Thanks in advance,
> Reuben A. Popp
> 
> Information Technology Department
> East Central College
> 1+ 636 583-5195 ext 2480
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