When did DAT tape drives get obsolete?
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And what replaced them? We went to buy some replacement DAT tapes and a cleaning tape and discovered that since the last time we bought them 5 months ago, not one single computer retailer (out of dozens in the area) carries them any more. The guy at Future Shop (a big chain store) said it was due to "Mass consumerism" Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. Every store had some variant on "I don't know, I guess they just burn a CD" to which we replied and how do you do that automatically every night? And the answer was "I dunno", to which we replied "and how do you fit 10 gb of data onto a cd?", to which they replied...you guessed it: "I dunno". Have people become so complacent because of the increasing reliability of computers that they don't backup daily any more? I can't understand this, how in the world can a business do a backup and take it offsite every day without a tape drive? Haven't they ever heard of disaster preparedness, buildings burning down etc etc? Or has something fundamentally changed that no one clued me into? You who program for business all use tape backups? You take them offsite daily? Right? ------------
Don't know if this is the media you are looking for, but take a peek at: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=manufactory&catalog=239&manufactory=1305&DEPA=1&sortby=14&order=1
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Don't know if this is the media you are looking for, but take a peek at: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=manufactory&catalog=239&manufactory=1305&DEPA=1&sortby=14&order=1
We used to have a TRAVAN drive but it went pretty much obsolete at the time about 4 years ago so we replaced it with a DAT. Those ones have a *lot* more storage than the old TRAVAN ones did, maybe that's what people are using now. Trouble is that DAT tapes are relatively cheap but TRAVAN tapes weren't, maybe they came down as well. ------------
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And what replaced them? We went to buy some replacement DAT tapes and a cleaning tape and discovered that since the last time we bought them 5 months ago, not one single computer retailer (out of dozens in the area) carries them any more. The guy at Future Shop (a big chain store) said it was due to "Mass consumerism" Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. Every store had some variant on "I don't know, I guess they just burn a CD" to which we replied and how do you do that automatically every night? And the answer was "I dunno", to which we replied "and how do you fit 10 gb of data onto a cd?", to which they replied...you guessed it: "I dunno". Have people become so complacent because of the increasing reliability of computers that they don't backup daily any more? I can't understand this, how in the world can a business do a backup and take it offsite every day without a tape drive? Haven't they ever heard of disaster preparedness, buildings burning down etc etc? Or has something fundamentally changed that no one clued me into? You who program for business all use tape backups? You take them offsite daily? Right? ------------
I also use DAT, but I have no problems finding them. Have you tried some online store? DAT is on it's way out and have been so for a couple of years now, companies rather use DLT because of its bigger size and better reliability... - Anders Money talks, but all mine ever says is "Goodbye!"
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I also use DAT, but I have no problems finding them. Have you tried some online store? DAT is on it's way out and have been so for a couple of years now, companies rather use DLT because of its bigger size and better reliability... - Anders Money talks, but all mine ever says is "Goodbye!"
Hmmm..unless DLT has come down *DRASTICALLY* in price it's out of our range. Tapes used to be well over a hundred bucks each and the drives were in the $5,0000.00 and up range. That was a long time ago though, at least 5 years, they're probably ten bucks for the tapes and 300 bucks for the drives now.;) ------------
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And what replaced them? We went to buy some replacement DAT tapes and a cleaning tape and discovered that since the last time we bought them 5 months ago, not one single computer retailer (out of dozens in the area) carries them any more. The guy at Future Shop (a big chain store) said it was due to "Mass consumerism" Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. Every store had some variant on "I don't know, I guess they just burn a CD" to which we replied and how do you do that automatically every night? And the answer was "I dunno", to which we replied "and how do you fit 10 gb of data onto a cd?", to which they replied...you guessed it: "I dunno". Have people become so complacent because of the increasing reliability of computers that they don't backup daily any more? I can't understand this, how in the world can a business do a backup and take it offsite every day without a tape drive? Haven't they ever heard of disaster preparedness, buildings burning down etc etc? Or has something fundamentally changed that no one clued me into? You who program for business all use tape backups? You take them offsite daily? Right? ------------
The company I work for sells a lot of storage media, new and old. Anyway, since we have a drive warehouse, you could imagine how many types of backup we have at our disposal. :-D Anyway, the URL is Bason Computer[^] Frank http://www.frank-l.com
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The company I work for sells a lot of storage media, new and old. Anyway, since we have a drive warehouse, you could imagine how many types of backup we have at our disposal. :-D Anyway, the URL is Bason Computer[^] Frank http://www.frank-l.com
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And what replaced them? We went to buy some replacement DAT tapes and a cleaning tape and discovered that since the last time we bought them 5 months ago, not one single computer retailer (out of dozens in the area) carries them any more. The guy at Future Shop (a big chain store) said it was due to "Mass consumerism" Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. Every store had some variant on "I don't know, I guess they just burn a CD" to which we replied and how do you do that automatically every night? And the answer was "I dunno", to which we replied "and how do you fit 10 gb of data onto a cd?", to which they replied...you guessed it: "I dunno". Have people become so complacent because of the increasing reliability of computers that they don't backup daily any more? I can't understand this, how in the world can a business do a backup and take it offsite every day without a tape drive? Haven't they ever heard of disaster preparedness, buildings burning down etc etc? Or has something fundamentally changed that no one clued me into? You who program for business all use tape backups? You take them offsite daily? Right? ------------
I use 25GB ADR tapes at work with a onstream drive. http://www.onstream.com/[^] At home I have 33GB VXA tapes with a ericx vxa drive. Now that exabyte bought them they should be in business for a while.. John
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And what replaced them? We went to buy some replacement DAT tapes and a cleaning tape and discovered that since the last time we bought them 5 months ago, not one single computer retailer (out of dozens in the area) carries them any more. The guy at Future Shop (a big chain store) said it was due to "Mass consumerism" Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. Every store had some variant on "I don't know, I guess they just burn a CD" to which we replied and how do you do that automatically every night? And the answer was "I dunno", to which we replied "and how do you fit 10 gb of data onto a cd?", to which they replied...you guessed it: "I dunno". Have people become so complacent because of the increasing reliability of computers that they don't backup daily any more? I can't understand this, how in the world can a business do a backup and take it offsite every day without a tape drive? Haven't they ever heard of disaster preparedness, buildings burning down etc etc? Or has something fundamentally changed that no one clued me into? You who program for business all use tape backups? You take them offsite daily? Right? ------------
The scheme I use at home is two step in terms of offsite backups, but has been serving me well for some time. I have batch files run overnight using the command line version of winzip, archiving the zip files (broken out into about half a dozen logical groupings) onto a disk on another machine in the network. Weekly, I burn CDs (takes 3), and keep a copy of my data in my briefcase. Wherever I am, the briefcase is, too (I will never again make fun of a woman's purse). My primary motivation for this scheme was irritation with the fact that every year or so there was a new format tape drive to handle the ever growing capacity needs, and extremely proprietary software (often flaky) to access the data. With zip files on standard CDs, I can plug my disk into any box on the planet and get to my data, instantly. In your case, it would take 3 DVDs instead of 3 CDs, and since it requires an extra, manual step might not be practical for you. In any event, I've found this scheme to be extremely practical in terms of getting to my data when I need to retrieve it. I'm no longer at the mercy of some flaky software that may be obsolete tomorrow. Well, other than my own, of course. :-) Chistopher Duncan Author - The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress)
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I use 25GB ADR tapes at work with a onstream drive. http://www.onstream.com/[^] At home I have 33GB VXA tapes with a ericx vxa drive. Now that exabyte bought them they should be in business for a while.. John
OMG What is going on with OnStream. We have a dead backup drive sitting in our computer for a month now. Everytime I send them an email it gets bounced, I call them the line is busy, and when you click on the link to submit a ticket it takes you back to the home page??? We were seriously considering filing a lawsuit, or at least small claims court. The first drive died on us and ate our tape, this second drive worked fine for 2 months and now its dead. All this in a span of 6 months. I would not recommened OnStream to anyone unless I can figure out what is going on :( We have the ADR 2.0 drive that backs up 120GB and I can't believe we had to go through two and now this :(
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OMG What is going on with OnStream. We have a dead backup drive sitting in our computer for a month now. Everytime I send them an email it gets bounced, I call them the line is busy, and when you click on the link to submit a ticket it takes you back to the home page??? We were seriously considering filing a lawsuit, or at least small claims court. The first drive died on us and ate our tape, this second drive worked fine for 2 months and now its dead. All this in a span of 6 months. I would not recommened OnStream to anyone unless I can figure out what is going on :( We have the ADR 2.0 drive that backs up 120GB and I can't believe we had to go through two and now this :(
They went bankrupt a few years back and maybe they are in the same situation again. We have Onstream 1 SC50 drives. We have a couple of spare drives to keep them running. I hope we still can get them because we have over 100 tapes full of archived medical images. John
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They went bankrupt a few years back and maybe they are in the same situation again. We have Onstream 1 SC50 drives. We have a couple of spare drives to keep them running. I hope we still can get them because we have over 100 tapes full of archived medical images. John
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The scheme I use at home is two step in terms of offsite backups, but has been serving me well for some time. I have batch files run overnight using the command line version of winzip, archiving the zip files (broken out into about half a dozen logical groupings) onto a disk on another machine in the network. Weekly, I burn CDs (takes 3), and keep a copy of my data in my briefcase. Wherever I am, the briefcase is, too (I will never again make fun of a woman's purse). My primary motivation for this scheme was irritation with the fact that every year or so there was a new format tape drive to handle the ever growing capacity needs, and extremely proprietary software (often flaky) to access the data. With zip files on standard CDs, I can plug my disk into any box on the planet and get to my data, instantly. In your case, it would take 3 DVDs instead of 3 CDs, and since it requires an extra, manual step might not be practical for you. In any event, I've found this scheme to be extremely practical in terms of getting to my data when I need to retrieve it. I'm no longer at the mercy of some flaky software that may be obsolete tomorrow. Well, other than my own, of course. :-) Chistopher Duncan Author - The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress)
So at worst you lose a weeks worth of work. And if a hit-man burns down your office and runs you over in the street breaking all the cd's in your briefcase you don't really care at that point! :-D I actually use a very similar system (using the command line option for Winzip as well) and I backup all my source and the contents of three SQL databases to another machine daily. Then the tape software kicks in about an hour after the winzip is done and backs up to DAT. I have boxes and boxes of old CD's burned, we keep rotating them out at the bank's safety deposit box because it can only hold about 10 cd's and there's a waiting list of over 2 years!! for the next sized box (why they don't add more is a complete mystery to me but then again everything else banks do falls squarely in the "complete mystery" category so why should it be any different there), but from what I understand there is a definite shelf life to cd's as well which surprised me the first time I saw that. (http://www.isomedia.com/homes/isomedia/CD/cd_rom_faq/faq_41.html[^]) I too hate the fact that tape software keeps changing and that tapes can get obsolete pretty quickly. I wish there was a standard and stuck to. We use the upgraded version of the sofware that comes with Windows 2000 and it seems to work fine, but as with all such software needlessly complicated beyond reason. ------------