Gene Heskett <gene.heskett AT verizon DOT net> writes:

> On Wednesday 15 October 2008, Dustin J. Mitchell wrote:
>>On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 10:44 AM, Seann Clark
>>
>><nombrandue AT tsukinokage DOT net> wrote:
>>> The other alternative I am looking into is getting a large external case
>>> and cramming it full of 1TB hard drives and using that as backup, but I
>>> would like a tape system that works well.
>>
>>This option is worth considering.  HD's have many fewer moving parts
>>than tapes/drives.  Even if the "critical failure" rate is similar,
>>the "annoying failure" rate of tape drives is much higher.  Which is
>>to say, they require a lot more fiddling.
>>
>>Dustin
>
> I'll back Dustin up on this one.  Switching to a hard drive got rid of 99.9% 
> of by backup problems.  It Just Works(TM).
>
> -- 
> Cheers, Gene

There is certainly merit in the hard drive approach, but you can lose
two critical properties if you aren't careful:

  full backups offline (not writable by computer) even while making next
  full backup.

  full backups taken to a remote location


I have been using LTO-2 for several years and have had little enough
trouble, although I can't remember if it is very little or zero.  Before
that I had DDS-3 and that was occasionally annoying but not that bad.

I am firmly in the tape camp at least for corporate use.

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