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Tape Drives for archiving.. anybody use them?
- Thread starter IOWA
- Start date
saptech
Android Expert
I don't hear of anyone using tape drives much anymore, except for businesses. I did at one time used those zip drives to make backups.
I think now days, its cheaper to buy a TB hard drive/external drive to make backup copies. I currently have a 500gb drive and put it into an external case.
I think now days, its cheaper to buy a TB hard drive/external drive to make backup copies. I currently have a 500gb drive and put it into an external case.
What kind of tape drive? 9-track mag tapes, like for mainframes?
Seriously, though, I'm wondering why you're even interested in tape drives these days. I had an Iomega Ditto Max drive (I had to look it up--couldn't recall its name offhand) years ago, along with several Iomega Zip drives. But these days I'm all about backing up on networked drives, external drives, and 'the cloud.' I definitely agree with saptech that an external drive makes better sense than tape nowadays.
Really?! I have! Dating back to 1980-something, when the brand new server (at work) had its SCSI drive fail within days of purchasing it. I'll never forget the lovely sounds--first, the panicked calls (I was still at home) from people at work that "something" was wrong with the computer system, then the grating, grinding, groaning sounds the computer was making as I unlocked my office to see what was up. I did something I'd never done before--powered off a *nix box by pressing its power button, not by gracefully shutting down as usual. No time for that!
saptech
Android Expert
Those round reels? I remember you had to check for the write protection ring when we removed the tapes from the drives. Those where the days!What kind of tape drive? 9-track mag tapes, like for mainframes?
I've also had hard drives die on me, it depends on the mfg, some are made better then others.
At my last job [at a data processing company] we still had clients who needed their data on mag tapes, so we obliged. We had these free-standing tape drives that we'd copy the data from/to tape with. I remember having to deal with stuff I'd never done before, like EBCDIC and packing fields and...stuff... I don't miss that!
Don't quote me on this, but other than the server's drive I mentioned, I don't THINK I've ever had a drive die in anything but a laptop. For some reason, my laptops have been very unlucky in that regard.
Joelgp83
Android Enthusiast
Which is what I was getting at. In the 1980's-1990's, the percentage of hard drives that suffered a head crash out of the factory was vastly higher than today, so much so that hard drives were NOT seen as a reliable long-term archival storage medium.
BTW, part of the reason why my computing experience hasn't involved my own equipment failing was probably because I was born in the early-mid-80's.
I'd like to think that computer technology was maturing at the same pace I was. 
SiempreTuna
Android Expert
.. and the cost of the media: I believe tapes are still quite a bit cheaper than disk per GB.
Last telecoms (high volume) place I worked (about 3 years back), they were switching out disks literally every other week. Fortunately, it was one of those database-in-a-box things (Netezza) so it was highly fault tolerant and consequently the failures didn't have too much impact.
Disks are getting better but the one sure thing about them is that they will eventually fail - that's why they used to come with a quoted MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures). Even leaving a disk unused for a time can kill it.
My last couple of laptops had disk failures and I have a desk full of external drives that have failed in one way or another. I can understand laptop disks failing - all that banging about when you move them - not so sure why I've had so many issues with externals, though. I have maybe 5 or 6 and the only one that hasn't failed is the newest one - but just give it time
SD is theoretically more reliable, but it has other problems, primarily the fact there's a limit on the number of times you can write to individual locations. It's quite a high number, but if you were using it for paging say ..
Dngrsone
Android Expert
The internet is well-aware of the number of hard drive failures I have endured; and I have not had much luck with external drive cases, either.
Currently, however, my back-ups consist of a combination of hard drives removed from service, DVDs and a 2TB network drive.
Dynamic and oft-used data are also stored on USB flash media and/or das kloud.
Of course, magnetic tape is not flawless, either. Magnetic anomalies, tape breakage, and mechanical failure all plague those machines.
With that said, tape is still regarded as more reliable than magnetic disk.
Currently, however, my back-ups consist of a combination of hard drives removed from service, DVDs and a 2TB network drive.
Dynamic and oft-used data are also stored on USB flash media and/or das kloud.
Of course, magnetic tape is not flawless, either. Magnetic anomalies, tape breakage, and mechanical failure all plague those machines.
With that said, tape is still regarded as more reliable than magnetic disk.
nickdalzell
Extreme Android User
I havent used a tape drive since I worked at Dad's office which was literally, stuck in the year 1978 technology-wise. Xenix, dumb terminals, line printers, the works. Wait, I'll correct myself. He had one i386. Running telnet to the system, still running an OS dated the year 1978. He later ditched the upstairs server box, dumb terminals, and got a Pentium II running none other than the 1978 version of SCO UNIX. Joy. I still remember the root password. 'Stone'.
Dngrsone
Android Expert
I have just the thing for you, my dear-- a storage medium guaranteed to last for hundreds of years.
In my country, we call it paper.
Rukbat
Extreme Android User
I worked for a company, back in the 80s IIRC, that made tape drives. It was a member of the quarter inch committee. Tape better than disk? Well, maybe the later cartridges, but DC-600s were pretty bad, even after we started using edge-sensing. (Before that you had to read the tape on the drive that wrote it, and not too many thousands of runs later.) I threw out a few hundred cartridges when I moved this past February, but I doubt if they would have been readable any longer.
For short-term storage, the cloud or SD. For huge amounts, hard drives that get regenerated regularly. For long-term storage - optical drives for now, and we'll probably have something better before a pressed DVD gets unreadable.
BTW, even the best hard drives do fail, even now. My last job was at a company that had a few thousand drives running, and they replaced them pretty often. Not all of them, but probably about one a week. Not a high failure rate, but if you don't allow for it, and the data you lose is critical, you're out of business.
For short-term storage, the cloud or SD. For huge amounts, hard drives that get regenerated regularly. For long-term storage - optical drives for now, and we'll probably have something better before a pressed DVD gets unreadable.
BTW, even the best hard drives do fail, even now. My last job was at a company that had a few thousand drives running, and they replaced them pretty often. Not all of them, but probably about one a week. Not a high failure rate, but if you don't allow for it, and the data you lose is critical, you're out of business.