"Post tape era" / Backup to disk data protection methods?

[bitman]

Hello,

Forgive me if this has been discussed before but,

Tape is falling out of favor with us because:

1. Our customers will neglect it (not changing/cleaning tape)
2. High failure rates with tape drives. (See point #1)
3. HD capacity outpacing tape & cost/ GB for tape

But we support systems in a high lightning area (Rocky Mountains)
and have seen 2 PCs come to our office with everything fried. - PS, disks (all),MB - everything.

Tape has a wonderful capability of being taken out of the danger
area (even off site) and the cartridges are durable and small enough
to be plopped into a purse and even dropped on the floor!

Have removable drive arrays become economical yet?

I know I can backup across the LAN, but in the case of even
a fire, tape can put humpty dumpty back together again.

Or is there a better way? - The thought of a secretary hot swapping
and storing a drive around just scares me to no end!

Hindsight please!

Thanks in advance,

Ron Anderson

[Hywel_Mallett]

I think tapes still have a place in backup strategies, simply because they can be vaulted easily. They're also pretty physically robust, and high capacity.
You might like to think about combining disk and tape. E.g. Having nightly incremental backups to disk, and a weekly full backup to disk, which then copies to tape. Backup exec can do this easily. That way you're only asking people to swap and remove tapes weekly. You could lose up to a weeks data in a total disaster, but it's better than losing it all because taking tapes away nightly was inconvenient...