Where does this "magnetic tape is a cheap backup solution" meme come from?
The fucking drive costs like 5000 dollars for the most recent generation, and 1TB of tape costs more than a 1TB enterprise quality hdd. Not to mention its only serial read.
Any of you serverfags confirm that this shit is actually used?
OK, kid.
If you don't know why you'd need it then don't use it.
It's cheap. Just not meant to backup your animu you virgin creep. KYS.
Price per terabyte of capacity is lower for tape the higher you get. The couple-thousand-dollar drive is a rounding error in an enterprise budget. Tapes don't die if you drop them and can be easily shipped to an off-site location so you have a disaster-recovery capability even if a tornado comes through and wipes out your server room. Sequential access isn't a big drawback because it doesn't matter for writing, and you do very little reading.
>someone doesn't have to store 50TB a week offsite
No seriously, I do this, and I have to retain each weekly set for seven fucking years. No fucking way would a it be feasible to buy a new box of 7 * 6TB hard disks each week and actually store them in the dark for seven years, and expect them to be accessible at the drop of a hat at any time.
Hello NSA
ok guys I get it. the portability and how they can be stored is attractive, but it probably is impractical for individual users.
im just looking for offsite backup options as (16TB of data) home user
prob just get only the important stuff (maybe 2tb)
goto
>Where does this "magnetic tape is a cheap backup solution" meme come from?
This isn't a thing and whoever thinks the words "backup solution" and "cheap" go together don't know what the fuck they are talking about. If your data is worth backing up you should not be using anything cheap.
It's a lot cheaper if you consider cost in terms of maintenance, data transfer and, most importantly, risk.
>get used drive for $10
>$12 for 800GB tape
Yeah, sure isn't cheap
>$10 used drive
>backup solution
loos like somewhere to conveniently mount /dev/null, for all practical purposes
Oh yeah, I forgot about how enterprise grade equipment is so well known for just up and failing.
the only tapes and tape drives I found for those prices hold a lot less than 800GB. Anything in the past few generations seems to be at least a few hundred used.
LTO-4
where the hell you finding an LTO-4 drive for $10
more imporantly where are you finding 800GB tapes for 12 dollars
i want in
That's the price I got mine for
eBay
It's not targeted for the home user you fucking tard
>enterprise grade
>$10 used drive
im not op retard
those
are
tapes
not
drives
>it stops being enterprise grade the moment you remove it from the box
That's not how that works. It either is or it isn't. This is.
I
was
asked
where
the
tapes
at
the
specified
price
are
You fucking dumbass
Do you work for the US government by chance?
>get used drive for $10
>tape
>drive
>find the difference
>protip: you can't, but because you're an idiot
You seem to be confused. I was talking about a tape DRIVE I got for $10, and posted a photo of JUST tapes for another user that asked where I got them for that price. I've been talking about the price of both tapes and drives throughout the thread.
Tapes are good for archiving. Just pull one out of the rotation regularly.
Hard disks are more economical.
It came from the 90's when you had crappy consumer grade tape drives like the Ditto.
Today, they are back in the enterprise where they belong.
>No fucking way would a it be feasible to buy a new box of 7 * 6TB hard disks each week and actually store them in the dark for seven years, and expect them to be accessible at the drop of a hat at any time.
Says the guy who's never had a tape fail.
Tapes fail unless very well cared for in climate controlled rooms, and even then they fail. Probably more so than a modern HDD sitting on a shelf unpowered.
Souce: Me. My relationship with tape goes back to the days of reel-to-reel with vacuum columns.
>weekly set for 7 years
My dear friend, in those 364 tapes, there's a bunch in there that are dead. Passed on. Joined the choir invisible. Ex tapes.
dummy
>and I have to retain each weekly set for seven fucking years.
And I work for the company which retains them for you!
This guy here: >Tapes fail unless very well cared for in climate controlled rooms
Yep, they are climate controlled.
>My dear friend, in those 364 tapes, there's a bunch in there that are dead. Passed on. Joined the choir invisible. Ex tapes.
That's not his problem. That seven year period is most likely a legal requirement. As long as he's doing his job, he's fulfilling his legal responsibility.
what does he do when he has to restore the data but a tape has failed?
are companies still using tape drives today?
>are companies still using tape drives today?
Of course they are.
We do. It's mostly because we are required to keep x years of backups. Those tapes have been rewritten so many times it's a miracle they don't have holes in them yet.
what happens in that rare event that you -actually- need the tape drives?
"The backup of that record failed"
I don't really know. It hasn't happened while I've been working there, and it really isn't my area. I think the primary use would be public records requests.