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Tape backup reliability

 
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scott_417
Frequent Advisor

Tape backup reliability

I have two questions in regarding to the backup sofware and drives.

1) I noticed the price for a backup software can range from $29 to about $800. What make the difference?

I would say that it is the tape drive to do the backup work, the software is just to do the scheduling and direct the data where to go. Can it be said the expensive software will allow the backup faster and more reliable?--I would doubt it.

2) I also noticed that even the backup itself could fail from time to time? So how safe is the backup? Do I even need the "backup" for the backup? If so, what could be the strategy?


Thanks to share your view and comments.


Scott
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Ivan Ferreira
Honored Contributor
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Re: Tape backup reliability

1) The backup software features makes the difference, like disaster recovery options, management, scheduled backups, inventory, streaming, etc.

2) You MUST have test restorations to verify that your backups are working. The backups is safe only if you know that you can restore the data when you need. Some people make backups of the backups, using a tape copy device/software, storing the copy "offsite".

Backups to tape devices are pretty safe, if the backup had errors you will know, by an alert on the software and the device.

After a backup, you at least must list the contents of the media to verify that the data was saved.

After the backup, you will see the log files indicating that there where errors during backup.
Por que hacerlo dificil si es posible hacerlo facil? - Why do it the hard way, when you can do it the easy way?
David Ruska
Honored Contributor

Re: Tape backup reliability


> I also noticed that even the backup itself could fail from time to time? So how safe is the backup? Do I even need the "backup" for the backup? If so, what could be the strategy?

Ideally you should have more than one copy of the data you are backing up. See this white paper for recommendations on backup strategies:

http://h71028.www7.hp.com/ERC/downloads/5982-6745EN.pdf
The journey IS the reward.