Travis_AKA_fonzbear2000 said:
You say 1 tape can back up 1.6TB. So, just get a bunch of 2TB HD's.
Well, assume that the general IT guy in charge knows as much as you and has done some thinking on the process. First, when it comes to backups, having them done does no good in a catastrophic disaster, so its always best to have them stored off site. Second, a tape is far more rugged than an external HD. Third, I don't know the cost, but I bet having a tape is quite a bit less expensive than a 2TB HDD is. Lastly, you need many of them. You have to do back ups every day, so you have to, at least, have 3 sets of materials for good transfer: the set that I am storing today, the set they are saving from yesterday, and the set that is being sent back from 3 days ago. Basically, one set at the site, one set off site, and one set moving. More is better. Now, if a tape gets dropped, no big deal, because it still functions, but if a HDD gets dropped and its platter destroyed, then its back to the piggy bank. Also, you can say "Make people be more careful" and, sure, you can, but why build in something that relies on no human error. Also, the case can be made for SSD's, but they are more expensive, and from what I've read, they do have some degradation after so many copies have been made. So, for the cost involved, the safety of the backed up material, and for the lowest factor of human error, tapes make a lot of sense. They aren't, actually, such an out of date technology, they seem to still be making advances in tape storage.
The electronic 'vault' HDD storage center we have is awesome. It stores locally and off sight, it has 9 HDD's in it, 4 in use, 4 as backups, one spare, (IIRC) its over 4TB for storage, and works pretty well. However, to get something that is 'server grade' it wasn't cheap. I have heard in the $10k range, but that could include the installation and support software that goes with it. Cheap HDD's mean nothing if they crash and the data is lost.
