Where to find a specific tape backup drive

Greetings Drizzt420,

That's a DDS-1 drive.  OLD indeed.  You can look on ebay, but I'd suggest a newer DDS3 or DDS4 drive.  Actually, I'd suggest using an external hard drive - it's far more cost effective.  Or even a DVD Recorder.

Or perhaps I'm wrong.  But in any case, here's one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-Arcahive-Python-06408-20-40GB-DAT-DDS4-Tape-Drive_W0QQitemZ8744434944QQcategoryZ39977QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

other external storage (network drive, DVD) much beter, TAPES are unreliable and often go bad (plus cost lots) take this opertunity to upgrade your backup solution.

This Server is on it's last leg and they will be migrating over to SBS 2003 in a month or so. They need a backup solution in the mean time, that will require little or no Server configurations because  I fear for the heatlh of this old machine and want it to last until the migration, I would be concerned about having to install any thing more on this box.

Is there a cheap and easy way to automate a nightly back-up for these people, say over the network, or to an external hard disk. as suggested above?

None of the employees that work in this office know a thing about computers, they didnt even know that their backup wasn't working, until they called me in to work on email problems -  so it has to be automated because of this, it also needs to be a fast solution because they haven't had a backup actual complete successfully in a long enough time that a crash would ruin their business, it needs to be a cheap solution because they don't want to spend a lot of money on something they will only be using for another month or two - unless I got something that would work for them after the migration as well.

I didn't think I would be able to back up to an external disk, or network drive because of it being an NT4 Server( I have worked extensively with Server 2000/2003 but I can count on 1 hand the amount of times I have seen an NT4 Server).  

I also need a backup solution that wont damage their Exchange 5.5 databases

You should be able to use any DDS-4 Drive. Even if the python isn't DDS-4, it is some type of DDS, and with a DDS-4 drive you'll be able to use all types of DDS tapes from DDS-1 to DDS-4, as they are downwards compatible. Just as a note, DDS type tapes and drives aren't all that longlasting, so if at all possible, I'd try getting some other system.

I would strongly recommend setting up a network backup that will get them through the next month, then get a more modern solution for the new server. Buying a new piece of ancient technology is never a good idea.

I have only worked with NT4 once, and it was asituation much like yours. The old Travan drive was failing and I needed to do a backup before converting a database. I was able to use NTbackup, and map a drive and send the data over the network, so I know it's possible, although I would not be able to tell you how to do it. Look around on the net, I'm sure you could find an article on it in like 5 minutes.

Wont just backing up the files to a network drive damage the Exchange databases?

Actually they did not have Exchange, so don't quote me on this, but I know that NTBackup from 2K on is Exchange aware, meaning you can perform online backups with it. Not 100% sure of NT4 or Excahnge 5.5. Someone here will know. Basically, if you open NTBackup on the server, look in the selections windows, and if you see "Microsoft Information Store" or Microsoft Excahnge" or something similar, then it is safe. If your question is will it harm the database because of where you are sending it, then no, the data does not care what media it is being sent to. It will have already been compressed in to a flat file by the time it hits the network.

NTBackup on NT4 isn't capable of backing up exchange stores while exchange is running. From Windows 2000 Server upwards it is. If you use NT you would have to stop the exchange services before starting the backup. If you do use ntbackup from nt4 to backup exchange, you will have to use the eseutils to make a working exchange store again, and that takes a lot of time and commandlineing.

They are using NT4 and Exchange 5.5, so the fastest simplest soulution would probably be to have the replacement tape drive over-nighted then right?

I know that I split the points between the same person, but for the sake of someone that might browse this question/solution at a later date, I thought that both comments would contain useful info.

Many thanks to all of you for the help.