[AUUG-Talk]: Power User Backups

[Joel Sing]

Hi Frank,

> I've recently been looking at my local machine, and with nearly 400GB
> of data (some good, some bad, and some just plain rubbish), I can't find
> any reasonable method that will work for now and in the future that
> won't cost me many $K.  For anything up to about $2K I can really only
> get tape drives that backup 50-100GB, which is doable now, but not as
> things keep growing.

There are only two things I'd recommend for that volume of data. If you want 
to go down the tape path, LTO (otherwise known as Ultrium) is probably the 
only way to go. LTO2 is 200GB native and LTO3 is 400GB native. An LTO2 tape 
drive will set you back $2-$3K, however the media is extremely cost effective 
(can be as low as 40 cents per native GB). They're quite reliable, have a 
decent transfer rate and would allow you to backup your 400GB of data on one, 
possibly two tapes (depending on how much hardware compression you can 
squeeze out of the unit). At 200GB per tape, an LTO2 drive would also give 
you a reasonable amount of room for future growth. IBM, HP, Exabyte and 
others manufacture drives - more info on the LTO format can be found at:

http://www.lto.org/

http://www.ultriumlto.com/

The only other thing I would suggest is a couple of external hard disk drives. 
Whilst I'm not personally a fan of backing data up to a hard drive, it could 
be viewed as a better solution than nothing at all. Lacie and others 
manufacture external drive units - a 500GB Lacie Porche drive will set you 
back a little under $500. Two of these would give you a semi-reasonable 
backup solution for under a $1K. The downsides are more than likely obvious - 
they are arguably more fragile than tape, you'll only have two copies of your 
data and if your data grows bigger than the unit you've got problems. 

A slightly cheaper (and more fragile) way of achieving the same is with a 
couple of 500GB S-ATA hard drives (a pair of Seagate S-ATA II 500GB drives 
would probably set you back around $840) and one of these:

http://www.pccasegear.com/prod3581.htm

(yes, they do work with non-Windows operating systems!)

Anyway, just my $0.02! :)

Cheers,

Joel

PS. I guess the reality of it is, what is the cost if you lost the lot without 
a backup? If the answer is nothing, then obviously it's not worth backing 
up ;)
-- 
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             => Joel Sing | joel at ionix.com.au | 0419 577 603 <=
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  "I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being 
   nice to people who are being stupid." - Theo De Raadt