Disk to Disk or Disk to Tape Backup
If you are involved with IT Systems then at some point you have pondered different methods of backup. I'm sure you've considered disk to disk backups, but is it really for you?
Traditionally and even now tape is the most widely used and lowest cost medium for long term/archival backup. Before we talk about the pros of tape backup let's talk about the cons.
The biggest problem you've probably encountered with tape backups is the backup window needs to be pretty wide as writing to tape takes longer compared to backing up to disk (same goes for restoring data). Since most companies want to backup data on a nightly basis, if the backup takes too long then it starts to affect user performance, especially the users who come in early.
Since tape is magnetic media, it is prone to degradation and can be unreadable if not stored properly. This issue, however, is not restricted to tapes, even hard drives are magnetic media and need proper care in storing. For extra long term storage, an optical disk live CD or DVD might prove more reliable as long as the amount of data to be backed up for long term storage is not huge.
I've heard most of you mention human error in changing tapes. This really is not an issue as with currently available tape libraries and auto changers, the tape rotation process can be automated.
In situations where backup window is small, a disk to disk system might be an excellent choice but it does not offer the archival nature of tapes at the same cost levels.
The optimum backup system, if you are backing up a lot of data nightly, might be a hybrid approach.
Use a disk to disk system for quickly backing up production data to backup disk and then slowly backup that data to tape for historic archiving. Since data is written to tape from backup disks and not production disks, user performance is not affected and backup to tape can take place during office hours.
Nadeem Azhar 06/09/2007
2006 Copyright PC.Solutions.Net Business process automation, information technology consulting, IT Outsourcing, HP partner, IBM partner, Microsoft partner, Secure Computing partner, GFI partner, Neverfail partner, Fonality Partner
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