7 ms·

It would be great if magnetic tape were more accessible for consumers. A while back I was reviewing local backup and storage options, and I read up a bit on it.

It would be great if magnetic tape were more accessible for consumers. A while back I was reviewing local backup and storage options, and I read up a bit on it. I think it scales better when you have massive amounts of data, but the initial price is fairly steep. At the consumer level it makes way more sense to buy HDDs. My suggestion would be to pick up something like the EasyStore 8TB external HDD [0] (on sale right now at Best Buy for $160, will probably drop again soon). You can open it up, extract the drive, and drop it into your computer if you want internal storage. If you want to reduce the risk of data loss you can also fill one up with an encrypted snapshot of your important things and ship it to a family member. Very important if you live somewhere that's at risk of being destroyed by natural disasters. [0] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-8tb-external-usb-3-0-hard-drive-black/5792401.p https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-8tb-external-usb-3...

_iyig 8y ago
I’ve been happy with M-Disk DVDs for durable, disaster-proof, write-once backups. Gets a little pricey when you start talking about TB, but for family photos and important documents it more than meets my needs.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  I'm not familiar with M-Disks but I swore off optical media for long term storage around 2004 when the discs in the binder I use to carry around started turning up empty. Several of them were those Kodak Gold Archival CDRs that were supposed to last a decade but were dead inside 3 years.
- jacobush 8y ago
  Thank you, had no idea. I will consider this for photos and such.
Johnny555 8y ago
For the majority of consumers, cloud backup makes more sense than tape backup -- few people have the discipline to stick to a safe backup regimen.
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  Cloud backup will never work for 8T of data :-)
  - Johnny555 8y ago
    With a gigabit internet connection, it would take about a day to backup 8TB. 100mbit could do it in 222 hours. At 10mbit, about 90 days.
    - sametmax 8y ago
      Most non tech savvy people don't even have that much data to backup: most of their heavy stuff (music, pictures, etc), are now attached to an online service. Plus you only do it once. Differential backup would take down the size of the next backups to a few Gb, or even Mb.
    - dsr_ 8y ago
      It turns out that actual throughput on nominal "gigabit" consumer ISP connections ranges from 0-95% of the branding. It is only safe to consider them as "may burst as high as 980 Mb/s" and to actually test your connections to any given destination. Oversubscription and the resulting congestion are assumed into the consumer ISP model.
    - ams6110 8y ago
      Even assuming that a consumer "gigabit" connection is actually delivering that speed, you also have bottlenecks in the wire protocol (sftp or scp or https or whatever) and the storage service. It would take me longer than a day to copy 8T to the archive storage within my own data center using HSI (an ftp-like utility for accessing HPSS storage).
    - s3m4j 8y ago
      Last year I took a subscription to Backblaze, (incidentally) I have around 8TB of data, I have a gigabit upload (a real one), but Backblaze servers are on the other side of the planet for me. It took around 3 or 4 months to upload it all. That's to say, there's more to it than upload speed, if Backlaze had servers in Europe I'd recommend it much more than I do.
skookumchuck 8y ago
This HP tape drive costs $2347 and can store "up to" 3T per tape. https://www.amazon.com/HP-LTO-5-Ultrium-External-EH958B/dp/B009NEII4E https://www.amazon.com/HP-LTO-5-Ultrium-External-EH958B/dp/B... The tapes are $31 and only store 1.5 T. https://www.amazon.com/LTO5-Ultrium-1-5TB-3TB-Case/dp/B003KR4CXQ https://www.amazon.com/LTO5-Ultrium-1-5TB-3TB-Case/dp/B003KR... I can buy a 1.5T hard drive for $47. https://www.amazon.com/Generic-1-5TB-Internal-Desktop-Drive/dp/B005LL9VYO https://www.amazon.com/Generic-1-5TB-Internal-Desktop-Drive/... I'm not seeing the cost-effectiveness of tape.
- slavak 8y ago
  An IBM 3592 JD Advanced Data Tape Cartridge costs a bit over $200 and has a raw (uncompressed) storage capacity of 15TB. An LTO-8 cartridge is 12TB and under $200. Meanwhile the cheapest 10TB HDD Newegg sells is $304.27.
  - skookumchuck 8y ago
    What does the tape drive cost for it?
    - shubb 8y ago
      The internet says around 1000 dollars. I guess it only makes snese if you need to store a petabyte.
    - slavak 8y ago
      No idea. It seems to be sold under the "if you need to ask, you can't afford it" pricing model. These things are definitely not intended for home use; I don't think any tape drives being sold today are, really.
  - qaq 8y ago
    10TB is not cost effective HD size 8TB is 160
    - 8y ago

_iyig 8y ago

I’ve been happy with M-Disk DVDs for durable, disaster-proof, write-once backups. Gets a little pricey when you start talking about TB, but for family photos and important documents it more than meets my needs.

cptskippy 8y ago
I'm not familiar with M-Disks but I swore off optical media for long term storage around 2004 when the discs in the binder I use to carry around started turning up empty. Several of them were those Kodak Gold Archival CDRs that were supposed to last a decade but were dead inside 3 years.
jacobush 8y ago
Thank you, had no idea. I will consider this for photos and such.

Johnny555 8y ago

For the majority of consumers, cloud backup makes more sense than tape backup -- few people have the discipline to stick to a safe backup regimen.

skookumchuck 8y ago
Cloud backup will never work for 8T of data :-)
- Johnny555 8y ago
  With a gigabit internet connection, it would take about a day to backup 8TB. 100mbit could do it in 222 hours. At 10mbit, about 90 days.
  - sametmax 8y ago
    Most non tech savvy people don't even have that much data to backup: most of their heavy stuff (music, pictures, etc), are now attached to an online service. Plus you only do it once. Differential backup would take down the size of the next backups to a few Gb, or even Mb.
  - dsr_ 8y ago
    It turns out that actual throughput on nominal "gigabit" consumer ISP connections ranges from 0-95% of the branding. It is only safe to consider them as "may burst as high as 980 Mb/s" and to actually test your connections to any given destination. Oversubscription and the resulting congestion are assumed into the consumer ISP model.
  - ams6110 8y ago
    Even assuming that a consumer "gigabit" connection is actually delivering that speed, you also have bottlenecks in the wire protocol (sftp or scp or https or whatever) and the storage service. It would take me longer than a day to copy 8T to the archive storage within my own data center using HSI (an ftp-like utility for accessing HPSS storage).
  - s3m4j 8y ago
    Last year I took a subscription to Backblaze, (incidentally) I have around 8TB of data, I have a gigabit upload (a real one), but Backblaze servers are on the other side of the planet for me. It took around 3 or 4 months to upload it all. That's to say, there's more to it than upload speed, if Backlaze had servers in Europe I'd recommend it much more than I do.

skookumchuck 8y ago

This HP tape drive costs $2347 and can store "up to" 3T per tape. https://www.amazon.com/HP-LTO-5-Ultrium-External-EH958B/dp/B009NEII4E https://www.amazon.com/HP-LTO-5-Ultrium-External-EH958B/dp/B... The tapes are $31 and only store 1.5 T. https://www.amazon.com/LTO5-Ultrium-1-5TB-3TB-Case/dp/B003KR4CXQ https://www.amazon.com/LTO5-Ultrium-1-5TB-3TB-Case/dp/B003KR... I can buy a 1.5T hard drive for $47. https://www.amazon.com/Generic-1-5TB-Internal-Desktop-Drive/dp/B005LL9VYO https://www.amazon.com/Generic-1-5TB-Internal-Desktop-Drive/... I'm not seeing the cost-effectiveness of tape.

slavak 8y ago
An IBM 3592 JD Advanced Data Tape Cartridge costs a bit over $200 and has a raw (uncompressed) storage capacity of 15TB. An LTO-8 cartridge is 12TB and under $200. Meanwhile the cheapest 10TB HDD Newegg sells is $304.27.
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  What does the tape drive cost for it?
  - shubb 8y ago
    The internet says around 1000 dollars. I guess it only makes snese if you need to store a petabyte.
  - slavak 8y ago
    No idea. It seems to be sold under the "if you need to ask, you can't afford it" pricing model. These things are definitely not intended for home use; I don't think any tape drives being sold today are, really.
- qaq 8y ago
  10TB is not cost effective HD size 8TB is 160
  - 8y ago