Advise on Tape / Drive to purchase...

[Nigel Wright_1]

Thanks Jon et al for all the info so far.

We have 3 TZ89 desktops which are conneted to an Alpha 2100A running 6.2, we have a number of other members all running 6.2, except for an DS10 on 7.1-2.

The main storage is a HP SA 7000, mostly fully populated, in a single controller configuration.

[Nigel Wright_1]

Correction should be RA

Thanks Nigel.

[Hoff]

Right off the cuff, you probably won't want the following approach, but I'll include it to help you scale your requirements, and there might well be a reason here to look to use this approach for your backups...

Disk spindles are terabyte-scale now, so we're well below the capacity of a typical disk rack. HP is offering 500 GB spindles in some configurations, and TB disks are in common use.

Biggest issue with on-line storage is connectivity (getting the bits from the host to the platters), and a NAS drive array with FTP capabilities might well get you what you need here. One of the HP AiO boxes, for instance, or various similar products. (The controller and cabinetry is now usually the largest part of the price, not the storage.)

This (US$275 current street price per bare terabyte spindle, and US$110 per half-terabyte spindle) is probably more than you want to spend if you're looking at an LTO-3 (older) drive, and thus this reply is intended solely to allow you to "scale" this archival requirement with what passes for current-generation storage.

FWIW.