hardware and software for reading HP Colorado 8GB tapes

[Rick Kissh]

Doing some disaster recovery planning. We backup using an internal HP Colorado 8GB drive. Let's say there is a disaster that destroys the computer with the tape drive.

What tape drive and backup software can I buy on the market today that will allow me to read my backup tapes?

Thanks very much,
Rick

[Rick Kissh]

We are using HP Colorado Backup 2 version 8.0 currently as our backup software.

Thanks.

[Lewis Finch · Accepted solution]

Rick, That whole Travan product line was discontinued several years ago. You might find Travan drives that can use those tapes but not likely find one that can restore the data written by CBII. Since the tapes didn't hold that much data anyway, a possible inexpensive solution for you might an external USB hard drive that can be removed from the premises.

[Rick Kissh]

>Rick, That whole Travan product line was >discontinued several years ago. You might find >Travan drives that can use those tapes but not >likely find one that can restore the data >written by CBII. Since the tapes didn't hold >that much data anyway, a possible inexpensive >solution for you might an external USB hard >drive that can be removed from the premises.

Holy cow. Better start looking for one of those drives on ebay.

The darn drive has an MTBF of 250,000 hours. I may die before it does. The manual says I'm not even allowed to clean it. The thing still works flawlessly after all these years...

Thanks for the help,
Rick

[Lewis Finch]

Rick, Mean time between failure rate doesn't mean the drive will run for 250,000 hours (28 years) it only means it could stay powered on that long. The way you clean it is by running the retension command in the back up software.. Be careful what you buy on ebay. A tape drive that has not been used for several years has a chance to deteriorate worse than one that is used daily.