Comments on: Why Tape Technology Just Doesn’t Cut It http://thestoragearchitect.com/2008/07/17/why-tape-technology-just-doesnt-cut-it/ Storage, Virtualisation & Cloud Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:47:20 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Ewan http://thestoragearchitect.com/2008/07/17/why-tape-technology-just-doesnt-cut-it/#comment-301 Ewan Sat, 19 Jul 2008 13:50:00 +0000 http://thestoragearchitect.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/why-tape-technology-just-doesnt-cut-it/#comment-301 You're right, tape doesn't cut it, but the bigger problem is disk doesn't cut it either, at least for small businesses.<br/><br/>For £750 (about $1500) I can buy a VXA-320 tape drive and 10 tapes, it's a simple solution and it works well enough for most small businesses. It lets you put a tape in each evening, and then each morning remove the tape from the drive and the office manager can put it in their bag to take home with them that night.<br/><br/>On the other hand, It does have all the issues of tape and if you need to backup more than around 250GB of data you're probably going to struggle.<br/><br/>The closest thing out there in the disk world that I can find is the GoVault which is so overpriced it makes tape too cheap to ignore.<br/><br/>Sure you can buy an external USB or NAS disk drive and backup to it, which is exactly how I backup my home PCs, but the NAS drive doesn't support offsite storage at all, and the USB drive needs people to fiddle with cables and probably login to windows to unmount the drive before removal each morning.<br/><br/>Can you find a comparable disk system to a tape drive for a similar price? Or do you believe customers should no longer take data offsite for storage? Or should they go for a 3rd system, such as backup to a NAS drive which then is then backed up over the Internet to someone like Mozy? You’re right, tape doesn’t cut it, but the bigger problem is disk doesn’t cut it either, at least for small businesses.

For £750 (about $1500) I can buy a VXA-320 tape drive and 10 tapes, it’s a simple solution and it works well enough for most small businesses. It lets you put a tape in each evening, and then each morning remove the tape from the drive and the office manager can put it in their bag to take home with them that night.

On the other hand, It does have all the issues of tape and if you need to backup more than around 250GB of data you’re probably going to struggle.

The closest thing out there in the disk world that I can find is the GoVault which is so overpriced it makes tape too cheap to ignore.

Sure you can buy an external USB or NAS disk drive and backup to it, which is exactly how I backup my home PCs, but the NAS drive doesn’t support offsite storage at all, and the USB drive needs people to fiddle with cables and probably login to windows to unmount the drive before removal each morning.

Can you find a comparable disk system to a tape drive for a similar price? Or do you believe customers should no longer take data offsite for storage? Or should they go for a 3rd system, such as backup to a NAS drive which then is then backed up over the Internet to someone like Mozy?

]]> By: Chris M Evans http://thestoragearchitect.com/2008/07/17/why-tape-technology-just-doesnt-cut-it/#comment-300 Chris M Evans Sat, 19 Jul 2008 07:30:00 +0000 http://thestoragearchitect.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/why-tape-technology-just-doesnt-cut-it/#comment-300 Rich, thanks for the link; I couldn't and still can't spot it from the press releases page here;<br/><br/>http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/pressreleases.jsp<br/><br/>However just doing www.sun.com/rss provides me the main page. It's not exactly obvious or well advertised! Rich, thanks for the link; I couldn’t and still can’t spot it from the press releases page here;

http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/pressreleases.jsp

However just doing http://www.sun.com/rss provides me the main page. It’s not exactly obvious or well advertised!

]]> By: rwhiffen http://thestoragearchitect.com/2008/07/17/why-tape-technology-just-doesnt-cut-it/#comment-299 rwhiffen Sat, 19 Jul 2008 01:07:00 +0000 http://thestoragearchitect.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/why-tape-technology-just-doesnt-cut-it/#comment-299 EH?<br/><br/>http://www.sun.com/rss/news-rss.xml<br/><br/>Cheers,<br/>Rich EH?

http://www.sun.com/rss/news-rss.xml

Cheers,
Rich

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