Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Is Storage Capacity Outstriping Backup Capability?

Posted by Cliff on from the terabyte-backup-solutions-anyone dept.

Kzip asks: "On my modest home LAN we have four computers with around 300Gb of storage. A lot of this is used, but not a lot of it is backed up (certainly not on a regular basis). When I started looking for a backup solution I found that most of the affordable tape backup was way to small (DAT 12/24 is just too small now a days) or too slow (Onstream do 50Gb but on IDE it's only ~1MB/s ... so 6 tapes over 80+ hours!) or just too expensive (HP Ultrium is great, but at £3000 for a drive and £120 per tape it's a little pricey). So I'd like to ask the /. community: Does anyone know of a fast and affordable backup system for home/small office use." After a quick scan of Pricewatch and other sites, it seems that backup solutions >99G are expensive (all the ones I could find were more than $1000US). How long will it be before these and terabyte-backup solutions become affordable for SOHO ? use?

2 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. And what about non "enterprise class" business? by Stillman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There are a lot of businesses bigger than the SOHO type - here in New Zealand, 1-100 employees is the norm. They need serious backup within their smaller budget.

    If I was a more enterprising geek.... :)

    --
    Prisoner #655321
  2. User a smart backup strategy... by cnvogel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just use a smart backup-strategy.

    You just don't have to backup /usr when you
    can just reinstall them from the CDs they came on.
    -> Just save a list of your installed RPMs
    (redhat has a script for that purpose, I'm sure
    debian, slackware, ... has something equal)

    And your 50GM collection of MP3s doesn't change either. So just save them to CDr, which you can
    stick in your cheap DVD-player for easy listening
    on your home-stereo.

    So just make some permanent backup of things
    that will not change and incrementally backup
    only things that are changing.

    I doubt that your current programming project,
    your mailfolder and other things that change
    often are more than you can fit on a DDS3 DAT Tape...

    And if your computer breaks, you just reinstall
    your OS from your saved config (insert the CD,
    wait 15 Minutes, you can make yourself a pot
    of cofee in the meantime), when it's done
    you add your CDs (which of course have the
    proper location the data on them wents stored!)
    while the DAT fills your /home with the last
    backup and your'e set.