Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Dream Machine ( Build your own PC ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sean W. Smith who wrote (1210)	6/8/1998 4:51:00 PM
From: peter michaelson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14778

I think the solution to the back-up discussion is BOTH. The most valuable aspect of the back-up hard drive, IMO, is the ease with which one can back-up. A single copy and paste will do it - takes about 1 minute for a total back-up. I try to remember to do this daily. On a weekly basis (ideally) I also back-up to tape and try to remember to remove the tape and put it elsewhere. My 2 cents. Peter

To: Sean W. Smith who wrote (1210)	6/8/1998 5:52:00 PM
From: Dave Hanson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14778

Backup drives vs. tape/removable continued Should preface this by saying I agree with Peter's point that ideally, one would have both backup solutions. "4 Gig Travan Tape - $30 4 Gig Drive - $200 no comparison here..." Well, again, that depends. I can get a fast, cool 7 gig EIDE drive that will work in _any_ modern PC for less than just the drive and one tape--wheras the travan has to be installed in the PC I'm trying to restore. Granted, if you have gigs and gigs of data to backup, tape becomes much cheaper. For me, who just backs up my data and OS partitions, this isn't the case. Multiple revisions... "Still no comparison here. Lets assume 8 Gig Drive, 4 Gig TR4 Backup. I can Fit one compressed Drive Image on a TR4. With an 8 GIG disk you can get a max 2 images at a time." This is true only if you backup the entire drive as one partition. If so, than this is right. But in most cases, it's the data and the OS that really need backing up. "I have no less than 8 Weeks of disk images available on tape at any point in time. 2 is no where near enough. Often times the damage may have occurred greater than 3-4 backups ago which leaves a mirrored drive user screwed. Again not an adequate solution...." Again, a fair point given your configuration. Since I configure differently, I can easily keep 6 or more images of my boot partitions all on the extra hard drive, and try each of them out in < 5 minutes. Is this reasonably convenient on modern travan drives? I must admit, I'm not very familiar with modern travan systems. I reckon they works much better than the crappy little tape drives I recall from the early-mid 90s. Removability... "Also hard drives are still fairly fragile, continous removal and insertion from your PC can't be good for the life of the drive. Drop on it on the floor once and kiss your data goodbyte. Much less of issue with media that's DESIGNED to be removed." A fair point. I've never had a problem, but then I've only had a few minor drops, and I gather tapes are built to withstand pretty high g forces? Speed and convenience... You grant that HDs are faster, and I would certainly grant that speed isn't the primary factor. I would ask, just how quick are 4 GB tape drives these days? (BTW, is it 4 gigs uncompressed?) By extra convenience, I mean things like accessing the data on the spare drive easily on another system, using advanced bios setups to access them given a failure and make backups on the fly (i.e. Fastrack RAID), and similar permutations. "You have to know how/when to clean tape drives and replace old tapes to reduce susceptability to failures. Other removable carttridge drives are highly reliable and much more robust from an abuse standpoint than internal HD." I gather you've had good luck with tapes, and know your way around them. Do the drives require much TLC and replacing? I've had friends that have had problems with both zips and syquest drives, and am skeptical that they're more reliable than modern hard drives though I grant that most are more durable. (A reason never to transport a hard drive without good covering/casing.) On HDDs serving multiple duty... "How you can do these things it is full of data??? If you remove your data to play around your vulnerable. Removable disks such as Jaz and Syquest or perfect for this as well are certainly bootable...." Again, by having multiple partitions. I have a 11.5 gig drive, with compressed data and OS partitions of no more than 5-600 megs apiece. That gives you a lot of room to "play around" without deleting anything. Jaz and Syquest often can do this (albeit at slower performance), but then there are reliability worries (overblown?) and cross-machine compatibility issues there too. "I don't take chances with my data" A wise attitude. I try not to either. :) Sincere thanks for the rejoinder. Since you are obviously both much better versed with tape backup than I am and sold on it as a reliable solution, I (and others, I'm sure) would welcome any further thoughts you have on the matter--best configurations, best brands, your own backup routine, etc. that you'd care to share. You may well convince me to give tape another try. :) Regards, Dave