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TAPE vs Hard Disk

hi,

I'm about to replace my Server and SCSI Tape BackUp
Also moving away from Novell to MS SBS.

Is the tape still a worthy option ? Or I should think in Hard Disks?
Waht about off-site storage in that case ?

HP offers me DAT tape drives.

Thanks in advance,

Ernest Fox

redseatechnologies

Hi ERNIE25,

I always used tapes - until there was a similar question recently with leew, who strongly recommended hard disks instead.

I now use both. Tapes each night (for the exchange data mainly) and robocopy files to external hard drives (plus NTBACKUP files, AND another copy of exchange (because disks are cheap :))

Hope that helps,

-red

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Lee W, MVP

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redseatechnologies

Disagree may be a bit strong, just different opinions - and I have now integrated your ideas into my method, that is closer to an agreement in my book :)

Member_2_231077

Both. D2D2T gives quick local restore of yesterday's data and a decent number of backup sets so when a user asks for last month's version of a file it's probably available still.

rindi

You'll just probably see that tapes are best for use if you need to keep your backed up data for a long period of time, while if you replace your backup copies every day disks are better. So whether you should use HD's or tapes for backup is a question of your backup needs. I don't recommend DDS tapes though. They will normally not last as long as other tapes, and the hardware tends to break more often too. Get something robust like DLT or Ultrium.

Also if possible don't make the mistake of downgrading from a really good NOS like netware to M$'s SBS. If possible go for the small business solution of novell, you are a lot more flexible with that and it should also cost a lot less in the long run.

ERNIE25

ASKER

Thanks rindi for your commnets.
I agree with you on the Novell concept. I'm a CNE but the tide is taking me to the move. I can't find a tape backup that works with the Novell OS, for example.

My old Seagate drive with Travan tapes is on the edge of its life. It just came from the repair shop.

Sure, I don´t like to leave Novell. Not a single ABEND in years. That's peace of mind.

Do you know the way out, eg a tape compatible with Netware?

Regards
Ernest Fox

rindi

There's arcserve and backupexec which have netware versions. I believe also retrospect and tapeware have versions for netware. As for tape drives anything running off a SCSI adapter should work beautifully. We were using DLT's from Compaq, and there's no reason why those from HP shouldn't work anymore, the hardware is still more or less the same.