Thread

1. throwaway81523 · 1791165522 · focus · HN ↗

   Haven't seen that in ages and thought it had moved. 20GB tape containing all the corporate goodies. That makes me smile.

   1. Joel_Mckay · 1791167999 · focus · HN ↗

      The $/TiB storage cost currently creates weird choices in backup media... even making some older media formats economical again. Just finished a consumer storage option survey yesterday.

      Even if you account for consumer drive+spare cost, a 8TB HDD is still the best JBOD option. For under several dozen 25GB projects, the BD-R disc drive is currently the cheapest media backup option (about 35% cheaper than HDD above 12TiB). Note 50G and 100G BD EOL media are actually equal to or a worse deal than HDD.

      Also, HPE LTO9 18GB Tapes are currently around 5 to 15 times cheaper than HDD and SSD in terms of data storage cost, but the fixed cost of tape auto-loaders and drives don't always make sense until you have a significant amount of backup data. Tapes may also create a single point of failure in use... so incremental backups are a non-zero risk, and triple redundant hardware is required (old hardware gets hard to find.)

      The classic joke is still true: "Fast, cheap, or good.. choose any two..."

      Best of luck =3

      1. nxobject · 1791170980 · focus · HN ↗

         I've been down "LTO at home?" rabbit-hole... I nearly ended up buying a SAS HBA, until I realized that S3 Glacier is tape-as-a-service.

         1. sdcfgy · 1791180708 · focus · HN ↗

            S3 is too expensive to do a restore from. And you have to restore to verify.

            1. nxobject · 1791185048 · focus · HN ↗

               It isn't too expensive for my use case – per month, I retrieve about 500GB a month from Glacier Instant Retrieval to verify, which costs ~$15. Combined with other costs, my monthly bill is ~$50.

               I used to use Backblaze B2, which had cheaper egress at the cost of slightly more expensive storage (I think ~$5/TB/mo, with free egress up to 3x all current storage?) So I paid $20. But at some point AWS opened a datacenter near me, and I couldn't ignore how much faster data transfers got.

               1. sdcfgy · 1791188531 · focus · HN ↗

                  It's ok when it's 0.5TB but we're at about 900TB.

                  The point is the cost doesn't scale well.

            2. mrweasel · 1791185817 · focus · HN ↗

               Depending on the amount of data you have, might it not be less expensive than build the tape drive?

               1. sdcfgy · 1791188590 · focus · HN ↗

                  I paid < $400 for my LTO5

                  1. mrweasel · 1791191082 · focus · HN ↗

                     I assume used. Sadly I'm not really in a market where that type of equipment is widely available second hand.

                     1. sdcfgy · 1791191387 · focus · HN ↗

                        Yeah used with 1 year warranty.

                        Ah that sucks :(

               2. Joel_Mckay · 1791191196 · focus · HN ↗

                  >Depending on the amount of data you have, might it not be less expensive than build the tape drive?

                  Rule #25: Try to avoid making what one may purchase, as the total cost is often many times higher than first assumed.

                  It is tempting for many, but often doesn't end well for businesses. =3

            3. smw · 1791189251 · focus · HN ↗

               use cloudflare's r2, no egress fees

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