BEST Backup Methods

Anyone use tape drives? I just recieved a tape recorder, that takes 8GB tapes.

Will these tapes last a long time? Or shall i just get an external harddrive?

Big WIll wrote in post #2383547
Anyone use tape drives? I just recieved a tape recorder, that takes 8GB tapes.

Will these tapes last a long time? Or shall i just get an external harddrive?

Tape drives are crap....

Its so much FASTER and more cost effective to use an external hard drive. Tapes are high maintence. The tape drive itself require frequent cleaning, the tapes get old and need rotation.

My personal advise it to just get two of the same ard drives, and mirror them. Take one offsite and you are done.

For cheap, you can even get off-site FTP server storage and just upload ur picts to a personal private FTP site. House burns down, you still have ur data.

I don't so much think CD's & DVD's deteriorate over time (suggestions are that they do) as think the recording media is just far too vulnerable to physical damage to be used as a serious data backup media. Put the disc into a drive just slightly off center & bingo you've scratched it. Take it in & out of it's precious jewel case any less than 100% caution mode and you put fingerprints on it.
It's multiple hard-drives for me at the moment.

CDs and DVDs are vulnerable to those that you've mentioned. But I've never had scratches from mine in those cases. I think this lies in the various brands of medias out there. Higher quality discs have harder coating, better plastics in them that prevents premature wear. And fingerprints can be cleaned with no ill effects IF found.

As harddrives become cheaper and cheaper, it becomes the more cost effective solution. But for off site backups, it is much easier to mail a disc. So they both have its place one way or another.

I think it depends on data volumes and the cost to produce etc.

Home: mirrored on two NAS drives. Top keepers stored on sugmug.
Total Capital Costs < $1,000
Annual Recuring costs ~ $50

Work: SAN with weekly backups offsite.
Captial costs > $1,000,000
Annual Recuring costs ~ $250,000