Tape SUCKS! What else is there? 1

[seanh012]

God almighty, I've run into another problem restoring critical files from tape. The stupid tape is corrupt somehow. Of course neither the manufacturer of the tape or the backup software vendor (veritas) has an answer other than "that happens. sucks to be you."

This tape has been used 3 times! I just bought the thing a few months ago and put it into my rotation. Now I've got a situation where a user created some files, then deleted them the next day, so they are only on this one tape.

Everything in the logs about the backup job looks nominal! There are no exceptions or anything. Still, somehow, the tape is unreadable. After sitting in a safe for a week.

This is far from the first time I've had stupidities with tape. Although it happened far more often with DDS, it does happen with DLT as well.

So now the IT department looks incompetent because "we aren't doing proper backups". Jesus christ how can we be expected to do so when our tools routinely fail us through no fault of our own? Should we run 2 tapes for every backup job just in case one decides to be unreadable?

I seriously am at the point where I am just going to chuck my DLT drive altogether. If I choose this route, what are my options?

Thanks
Sean

 

[j93saturn]

Look into backing up to disk.

http://www.high-rely.com

has a very good disk backup solution. I have used these at a couple of clients and have gotten rid of many of those tape issues that you have.

Not to mention that the price of one of these 5-bay solutions (which works like an auto-loader) is about the price of a DLT solution and way cheaper than an auto-loader.

James
Security +
MCP NT 4.0 / 2000 / 2003
MCSE NT 4.0

 

[birky]

Hi

Just buy a NAS device and backup to disk..then just backup the NAS device if offsiting required

 

[dmayes]

Sean,

Your issue is why we don't use DLT nor LTO for most of our mission critical backups. Any place where we must use this technology we clone the tapes for verification purposes. We are a Legato NetWorker customer.

We use STK's 9840 tape drives. IBM has similar "quality" drives as part of their magstar series.

I believe Veritas has a "cloning" function that will read and verify the original tape while creating a "clone" tape.

It can quickly become a cost issue because "you get what you pay for" when it comes to tape technology. The STK & IBM drives are expensive when compared to LTO or SDLT, etc.

I'll climb off the soap box now...

HTH...Dale

 

[seanh012]

Dale,

The things you are telling me is what I have been hearing from the tape hardware manufacturers for YEARS. Every couple years some new tape technology comes out, and they say "for TRUE reliability, you must purchase THIS new thing and ditch all your old investements." Its as though I'm supposed to forget that 2 years ago the technology I currently have was declared to be totally reliable.

The cloning thing with Veritas just serves as an indictment against tape technology in general. I have to double my budget for media to really have a good chance at getting a clean backup?

I've been suffering along with tape for years now, and I'm really starting to wonder if its worth the hassle. Its starting to look as though removable hard drives are the way to go, especially considering the fact that I won't have to upgrade my backup device every couple years. "No really, we really really really mean it THIS TIME. Just buy ONE MORE tape drive.. please!"

Sean

 

[j93saturn]

Sean,

With the High-Rely system, you just upgrade the media in the future when you out grow it. No need to replace the backup device itself.

I had one client start out with a 80GB 5-day rotation. When they added their Exchange and SQL servers they simply replaced the media with 160GB drives. The old 80GB were tossed into workstations that could use the extra space.

As for cloning, you can use just about anything to clone these drives. Copy, xcopy, ghost, acronis, etc. Unlike most tape drives, High-Rely's get drive letters which makes management a whole lot easier.

James
Security +
MCP NT 4.0 / 2000 / 2003
MCSA 2000
MCSE NT 4.0

 

[bjverzal]

We do backups to disk pools, then make 2 copies to tape. One goes offsite and one stays onsite. We do about 1TB per day across 7 systems to a combination of DLT and LTO.

BV

 

[bfks3230]

It all depends on the size of your backup. If it's not that big, try Jaz drives. We haven't had much trouble with DDS here.

 

[Cubixs]

Check out

http://www.unitrends.com

d2d2t. Backupexec 9 also does d2d.

good luck,
Tony,

http://www.renaxsolutions.com

 

[j93saturn]

Tony,

Too bad the unitrends solution isn't removeable, or that might be a good solution. Backing up your data is useless unless you take it off site in case of disaster (fire, flood, etc). Hell the unitrends solution couldn't even be put into a fire safe.

James
Security +
MCP NT 4.0 / 2000 / 2003
MCSA 2000
MCSE NT 4.0

 

[MCSElord]

j93saturn, i took a look at

http://www.high-rely.com

. i think it looks pretty cool. i just emailed some questions to their tech support, and it sounds like you've actually used it, so i'd like to hear your side of it before they respond:

1. how well do these removable usb hard drive things work with veritas backup exec?

2. lets say i made a ghost image to one of these drives. is the hard drive bootable? could i boot off that image? is it hard to do?

3. i realise the thing is called "high-rely" but what is your evaluation of its reliability, particularly as compared to tape?

thanks for your help.

 

[j93saturn]

MCSElord,

Yes I currently use these devices, they taken the headaches out of backup problems. Now, to answer your questions.

1. Yes, they work with Veritas 9.x or higher. They have to be configured as a backup to disk folder, which is easy to do. I use the 5-bay solution with Veritas at one of my clients. I like the way Veritas creates reports, but can't stand the price of the software. If you're willing to spend the money, Veritas and High-Rely is an awesome combination.

2. Once removed from the casing you have an IDE hard drive that can be plugged into a workstation. If you imaged a bootable source then yes the High-Rely will be bootable. And no, it is not hard to do, unless you have not installed a hard drive into a PC before The issue here is that in the event of disaster (fire, flood, etc), most people only have tapes off-site. Well if your backup device is ruined in the disaster you have to get that replaced before you can recover you data. With High-Rely drives, you could plug the drive into a workstation and get going again much faster, far easier, with less money.

3. As for the reliability of it, let's start with this: Tape drives constantly need to be cleaned. Without a third party app, there isn't any way to verify if the tape is good, bad, or going bad. They are very susceptible to heat, cold, and dust. And the one thing that really irks me is to make sure they are "reliable" you should replace them every 6-8 months (what a waste of money).

I live in the desert of Nevada where we have 100+ degree summers. I have left High-Rely drives in my car during these times and I have never had an issue. I accidentally dropped a set of five once and they still work like a champ. What I really like, is the fact that High-Rely drives get drive letters and you can run a disk scan against them in Windows if you want to verify that the media is good. Real simple, real easy.


James
Security +
MCP NT 4.0 / 2000 / 2003
MCSA 2000
MCSE NT 4.0

 

[seanh012]

Hi again James.

I just wondered have you used one of these devices with a backup product that does imaging, such as Acronis or Ghost? It sounds cool that you could just plug the drive in and boot right off it, but have you actually done this, and if so, what software did you use?

Also, how did you schedule it? I have manually made Ghost images before, but I've never done it every night as a backup job.

Thanks,
Sean

 

[mwld67]

Sean- Why don't you check out idealstor.

http://www.idealstor.com

one of my friends bought a 4-bay unit and it has removable IDE drives. Works with Backup Exec. He loves it let me know if you want to talk to him.

Martin

 

[airbourne]

Your device may need cleaning or service. Ours would routinely say a tape was corrupted, but it was just working.

Also, how old are the tapes? They live no more than one year. I have heard people say they live for N years, but error on the side of caution.

I replaced my DLT with 320 GB SDLT & a PowerVault 132T. I have problems with files backing up sometimes when using the OFO (veritas BX 9.0) but no problems replacing. If they are in an iron or lead safe, is that safe in a warm environment? Isn't iron or lead partially magnetic? (not sure on this one) Maybe its where you store them?

We store our tapes in a cooled cleanroom environment. Is there any moisture / humidity getting to the tapes? If you take them in your car, do they get near a speaker magnet (subwoofer/speakers in trunk, speaker on the door if you carry them in that pouch).

These problems are near impossible to track down, but I would start with the device itself, then work towards environment. Also, with cleaning tapes use them 20x max, then toss them. People may say "use them longer, blah blah" but like I said before, it's your data. Error on the side of caution.

Maybe consider running two types of backups: NAS storage and Tape. Send the Tapes to an offsite storage facility, weekly/monthly and give areasonable rotation/reuse cycle and restore from the NAS before going to tape. You could use backup to disk, and install a removable HD, but that could get expensive.

Are you running full backups or incremental? Append or no append? Overwrite on a timer, or on data full? How many times do you use 1 tape in a week. 7x per week, is 365 write sessions in a year. most tapes have a maximum write, for example, like 10,000 GB (with a 320GB tape, it can be overwritten 31 times, give or take). Is that 10,000 max GB written accurate? I have no idea, but I was told to follow that proceedure because data is our company lifeblood, and they will spend the money to be safe.

 

[ricpinto]

I'm evaluating this product (beta test):

http://sea.symantec.com/content/product.cfm?productid=5

 

[ctv]

Sean,

check out Data Domain

Their DDR200 Recovery Appliance is a great solution. I know some colleagues that are extremely happy with it.
Here is some general info on it. You can get more on their site at

http://www.datadomain.com

thx
CTV

DD200 Restorer Recovery Appliance

• Named "2003 Product of the Year," Backup Hardware category, Storage magazine & SearchStorage.com
• Industry's first disk-based recovery solution that enables users to fully recover data at speeds typically reserved for high-end storage devices at a cost similar to tape automation
• Uses patent-pending Global Compression Technology to store up to 23 TB of data with compression ratios of 20:1
• Complements customers' existing backup software and tape backup solutions
• Enables recovery of mission-critical information in minutes, not hours

 

[technome]

Check this out for a disk to disk, the guy gives the details

http://ebrux.mvps.org/b2d/b2d.htm

 

[j93saturn]

technome,

Good info there. The only problem, which I have stated in this thread already... The solution is not removeable. Have fun recoving your data after a fire or flood.

If you don't take your backups off site, you might as well not backup at all.

For a Backup Solution that does not use tape, is priced very well, and is REMOVEABLE for off-site storage, check out

http://www.high-rely.com

James
Security +
MCP NT 4.0 / 2000 / 2003
MCSA 2000
MCSE NT 4.0

 

[technome]

This guy does take the drives offsite, once a week.These drives can be imported into any Windows 200x machine, as long as you have a controller which can handle 8 drives. Have to admit, once a week is a bit long, but in a real crisis, reinputing one weeks work is the least of the problems.