[Nottingham] Tape Backup Systems

[Phil Lakin]

> > Also in terms of hardware, I have been looking at SCSI LTO drives of
> > various
> > brands, is there anything I should look out for when choosing
> hardware?
> > obviously the more opensource happy the hardware is the better, one
> such
> > device I looked at was a freecom
> 
> I hate tapes :) - More recently I've just used USB HDD for client
> backups
> and had the user rotate them daily on the end of a usb cable. I find
> them
> much more reliable vs tapes.

Hi,

We've been using Amanda here for about 6 years, backup up around 8TB a
week onto LTO autochangers. We've found it very reliable, and quick.
Once you have your head around the tapecycle and dumpcycle method of
working out when it should do a full dump, its very straight forward. 

The tape changer of choice for us has been the overland, plugs straight
into amandas automatic tape changer so you should never have to change a
tape again (other than to take a rack offsite)

<http://www.overlandstorage.com/US/products/arcvault48.html>

Phil