Lukas Beeler's IT Blog

Backups are very important, and the media and technology used for them are even more important. While Disk to Disk is the best form of Backups for home users, tapes still make a lot of sense in companies, because they make it a lot easier to get something off-site for disaster recovery.

However, tape technologies available for x86 servers are numerous. On the other hand, choosing tape drivers is as easy as it gets. The more expensive they are, the better they are.

I only recommend one type of tapes to customers – LTO. LTO tapes and drives are among the fastest and most reliable on the market. They are more expensive than cheaper alternatives like the VXA drives, but they are trouble free, which can’t be said about VXA drives.

LTO2 (200GB) Half-Height external drives can be had for about 2’500CHF from Tandberg. Buying them directly from HP/IBM, they are a bit more expensive, about 3000-3500CHF. Do not buy internal tape drives when they’re not from your server manufacturer, as this could cause trouble down the road.

LTO3 drives are a bit more expensive, but pack 400GB instead of 200GB. If that’s still not enough, you should consider purchasing a small tape libary – LTO 2 libraries with 8 tapes can be had from about 8000CHF, which is quite a bargain.

Remember, you can’t extend the capacity of your tape drive, except if you have a library. So if you buy a LTO2 drive, but need more than 200GB of storage, you should buy LTO3. If you think you need more than 400GB of storage, buy a LTO3 tape library.

I’ve had experiences with DLT (which are usually to small), VXA (unreliable), and 4mm tapes (unreliable). What i’ver never worked with are Sony’s AIT tape drives – i would be interested to hear some experiences with those drives.