On Fri, 23 May 2008, Michael Short wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I realize that Bacula was originally developed for tape based backup
> systems, but disk space is becoming more inexpensive everyday. It is
> cheaper and more reliable to maintain a system which uses disk based
> mediums to store backup data.

Perhaps for small backups.

I'd hate to use disks for the 40+ TB I'm backing up now, or the 250TB
system I'm supposed to be commissioning in a few months.

Tapes have several big advantages over disks:

1: Mechanically robust (disk drives are _fragile_)
2: Power consumption (A tape doesn't use any power while idle)
3: When not in the changer, they're immune against "rm -rf /" games
   (This is important, I know one large ISP in New Zealand who had their
webserver _and_ disk-based backups trashed by a 14yo with a chip on his
shoulder.)
4: Even when in the changer, they're still largely immune against such
games.

I agree disks are useful for small amounts of backup and rapid-restore
scenarios, but at large volumes and for long-period archiving tape is
still a winner.

(Don't bother with DAT/DDS, there are too many "issues" with it.)

AB



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