LTO CRC errors on all my tapes

[Iceman]

Originally Posted by Renza

We already do online backup with Crashplan pro. Tape has the advantages of doing bare metal restores and getting the data restored quickly for disaster situations, online backup is then a safety net.

It's hard to comment on your situation without knowing all of the issues but can I just point out: If you're doing offsite cloud backup and all you're using the tape for is fast recovery, you may be better off with an image base backup solution that backs up to another server share or portable hdd.

If you want to take them offsite, you can get a bunch of USB powered caddies (or esata if that's applicable for your server) for the price of a replacement or repaired LTO3.

[Renza]

Originally Posted by Iceman

It's hard to comment on your situation without knowing all of the issues but can I just point out: If you're doing offsite cloud backup and all you're using the tape for is fast recovery, you may be better off with an image base backup solution that backs up to another server share or portable hdd.

If you want to take them offsite, you can get a bunch of USB powered caddies (or esata if that's applicable for your server) for the price of a replacement or repaired LTO3.

We've investigated this before, had a discussion on here IIRC, and came to the conclusion that portable hard drives wasn't as robust, especially if staff are going to be negligent and unplug drives without ejecting them. RDX is too expensive as well.

Have rotated the three newer tapes in, removed the 7 daily ones, and everything seems to be working fine now. Will order replacements for the tapes later in the week.

[Diode]

I'm a little concerned that backup admins are writing off tape too soon. While anyone will tell you that has delt with tapes they can be a pain to deal with, once you have a process in place they are not too bad.

While it's good many people are embracing the cloud, I'm still weary about it when it comes to long term data retention and the costs associated with holding data in the cloud for many years. Also the ability to restore data from 7+ years ago.

This link highlights some of the positives of tape and the myths. One myth is that they are unreliable. That's complete rubbish. I've restored from some DLT and SDLT tapes that are 10 years old and I didn't once come across one with errors!
http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-back...-too-soon.html

[revhed]

Originally Posted by Diode

I'm a little concerned that backup admins are writing off tape too soon. While anyone will tell you that has delt with tapes they can be a pain to deal with, once you have a process in place they are not too bad.

While it's good many people are embracing the cloud, I'm still weary about it when it comes to long term data retention and the costs associated with holding data in the cloud for many years. Also the ability to restore data from 7+ years ago.

This link highlights some of the positives of tape and the myths. One myth is that they are unreliable. That's complete rubbish. I've restored from some DLT and SDLT tapes that are 10 years old and I didn't once come across one with errors!
http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-back...-too-soon.html

You'd also be surprised at how much data you can recover from a tape that's been submergered in river water for the best part of a week! (or maybe you wouldn't)

[Diode]

Originally Posted by revhed

You'd also be surprised at how much data you can recover from a tape that's been submergered in river water for the best part of a week! (or maybe you wouldn't)

If this is from personal experience do tell!

I guess the perception they are unreliable comes from the fact unless you have your processes down pat that data is being properly copied and the tapes organised then you're doomed to fail. Also the fact it kinda reminds people of floppy disks which are unreliable.

[revhed]

Originally Posted by Diode

If this is from personal experience do tell!

It was the first Katherine Floods. While I wan't personally involved in performing the restores, I spent a bit of time checking out the drowned hardware that was recovered to Darwin and chatting with the techs doing the recovery work. It turns out there were some pretty "Casual" proceedures for performing backups and an extremly large number of of the servers for our "organisation" had backup tapes that sat on the floor beside the servers. They transferred the servers and tapes to Darwin and we had (a large conference room) that was filled with servers still covered in mud. Still-wet tapes in plastic bags beside the servers! They were at risk of loosing virtually all the data. The solution in the end was to clean the tapes up as best they could. Get a tape drive they didn't really care about and start running the tapes through it. They managed to recover something like 85% of the data using this method.

[Renza]

Originally Posted by revhed

You'd also be surprised at how much data you can recover from a tape that's been submergered in river water for the best part of a week! (or maybe you wouldn't)

fire on the other hand...

[Diode]

Originally Posted by revhed

They managed to recover something like 85% of the data using this method.

Case in point right there! That's quite astounding really. I can understand magnetic media surviving water but the mud factor I'm really surprised anything could have been recovered.

While a cloud copy (assuming your provider isn't just down the road) is peace of mind in this scenario it could take a bit of time to recover from a DR situation depending on your bandwidth once you get internet services connected etc. With tape you can restore your business offline with a truck load of tapes and bunch of drives.

For those lazy sods that leave tapes lying around in the server room get them off site and vaulted!