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The Tao of Backup

169 points · 59 comments · vntok

  1. throwaway81523 · · 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 · · 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 · · 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 · · focus · HN ↗
          S3 is too expensive to do a restore from. And you have to restore to verify.
          1. mrweasel · · focus · HN ↗
            Depending on the amount of data you have, might it not be less expensive than build the tape drive?
            1. Joel_Mckay · · 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

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