CentOS virt - Feb 2010 - LTO tape drives and Bacula for Backups?

How does everyone feel about using Quantum LTO 3 and 4 tapes
with Bacula for backing up both the VM's, Host, as well as from within
the VM's.

 

What are know good backup solutions? Can anyone name specific tape
drives / software that is working. 

 

Lee

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We used bacula to hotswap SATA disks. It worked great.

On Feb 10, 2010, at 8:39 AM, Lee Doran wrote:
>             How does everyone feel about using Quantum LTO 3 and 4 tapes
with Bacula for backing up both the VM?s, Host, as well as from within the VM?s.
>  
> What are know good backup solutions? Can anyone name specific tape drives /
software that is working.
>  
> Lee
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS-virt mailing list
> CentOS-virt at centos.org
> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos-virt
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----- "Ben Chobot" <bench at silentmedia.com> wrote:
> We used bacula to hotswap SATA disks. It worked great.
There is little argument for tapes at all in modern backup systems unless you
need archival storage and you have money to burn on media, time (backup/restore
time as well as time lost during restore on the requesting side), staff, etc.
You are better off and you will get more business value from one or more DR
sites, replication, and NLS for backups in one or more locations. You will
probably end up spending less overall if you just use the aforementioned hot
swap SATA disks instead of tapes.

-- 
Christopher G. Stach II
http://ldsys.net/~cgs/

----- "compdoc" <compdoc at hotrodpc.com> wrote:
> The tape is easily replaceable, without
> having to worry about bad connectors that can plague hot
> swap drive bay equipment. 
I really worry about your staff if you have damaged hot swap anything. How many
insertions are they rated for? According to its data sheet, a lower end Tyco/AMP
SATA connector measures up against EIA-364-09C (i.e., "Mate and unmated
[sic] connector assemblies for 500 cycles at a maximum rate of 200
cycles/hour.") Other relevant forces are on there, and you can read the
rest if you're interested here: http://tinyurl.com/ybnacp7 Basically, if you
break them, you're doing something wrong or you are buying equipment with
counterfeit or excessively substandard parts. I wouldn't consider this to be
on the scale of a plague.
> At $45 per tape for 320G of storage, it competes with hard
> drives. In case of tape drive failure, the tapes still work
> with the new drive. And with scsi or sata based tape drives,
> speed is not a problem. 
Plus the cost of the tape drive (~$700), plus time, increased risk (longer
backup duration means more risk), deployment flexibility, etc etc etc.
> Combined with disk based network storage, tapes have a place
> in IT.
Yes, archival storage.

-- 
Christopher G. Stach II
http://ldsys.net/~cgs/