[X4U] Better Backup?

[Michael J. Prevost]

Hi Mark,

I think Robert is 100% on target. Best choices are NAS  (Network 
Attached Storage)with gig-ethernet, or disk Raid Array with 
FireWire/USB 2.0.

Just Froogle 'NAS' or ''raid array' and you find many products to consider.

Good luck,

Mike


>Hello, Mark and Tim!
>
>I never made it to AIT; I jumped ship when I got fed up with DDS-4.
>
>Tapes are just too damned expensive today, the tape drives are delicate and
>even more expensive, and there is a real concern about future driver
>availability.  Add to that a lot of people's concern about Dantz's handling
>of Retrospect and I would say "get out while you still can."
>
>On a cost-per-gigabyte basis, a new, large hard disk in a cheapie external
>drive beats tape media hands-down, even ignoring the equipment and software
>overhead of tapes. It is a couple orders of magnitude faster, offers longer
>storage life, will be hardware-compatible with new computers for the
>foreseeable future, and is compatible with a huge assortment of backup
>utilities.
>
>Buying hard disks and then using them just for storage may require an
>emotional adjustment for those of us who've been in computing since ancient
>times, but really, they are the cost-effective option.
>
>DVDs are even cheaper, but can we really trust them to last? The labor
>overhead involved in burning them is much higher than with hard disks, which
>offsets the media cost, also.
>
>--
>Robert MacLeay
>Freelance editorial and creative services
>http://tinyurl.com/2zlf8
>
>
>On Wed, 28 Feb 2007 11:17:00 -0500, Mark Des Cotes <mark at astroprinting.com>
>wrote:
>
>  > We're looking into updating/revamping our backup system. Not only the
>  > backup of our workstations but more importantly the backup of our
>  > vast archive of past jobs and customer files. Currently we copy
>  > completed jobs to a file server with two mirrored HDs. We then use
>  > Retrospect to first backup the drives and then use it again to
>  > archive the files (copies the files to tape then deletes them from
>  > the drive). We are using AIT-2 tapes as our backup media. Our AIT
>  > drive is getting a bit old and we would like to upgrade it before it
>  > fails us. I'm wondering if there's any new and better options
>  > available to us? Or or should we stick to AIT-2 and just purchase a
>  > new AIT drive?
>