Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Long-Term Storage of Moderately Large Datasets?

Posted by timothy on from the rodents-of-medium-size dept.

hawkeyeMI writes "I have a small scientific services company, and we end up generating fairly large datasets (2-3 TB) for each customer. We don't have to ship all of that, but we do need to keep some compressed archives. The best I can come up with right now is to buy some large hard drives, use software RAID in linux to make a RAID5 set out of them, and store them in a safe deposit box. I feel like there must be a better way for a small business, but despite some research into Blu-ray, I've not been able to find a good, cost-effective alternative. A tape library would be impractical at the present time. What do you recommend?"

3 of 411 comments (clear)

  1. Tape is your friend by chill · · Score: 5, Informative

    LTO tape, properly stored, will outlast burned optical media and hard drives. Great stuff and designed specifically for what you're talking about.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Tape-Open

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
    1. Re:Tape is your friend by Saint+Aardvark · · Score: 5, Informative

      Couldn't agree more. A tape library (as in autochanger) might be out of your budget, but a simple tape drive wouldn't be too much -- say $5000 for an LTO4. Media is $50-$100 or so depending on where you shop. Seriously, you're not going to find a reasonable way of storing that much data anywhere else.

      BTW, if you're not a member of LOPSA, you may want to seriously consider it. Even if you're not a sysadmin, this is definitely a sysadmin-type question, and their mailing lists are second to none. It's an excellent resource.

      --
      Carousel is a lie!
  2. Re:Exactly. by TooMuchToDo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Because Amazon can be *expensive* compared to doing it yourself ($$$ for data in, $$$ for data out, $$$ for monthly storage). But heh, what do I know. I just manage the storage for one of the LHC detectors (5PB spinning disk, 17PB tape). Amazon is good when you've got VC money or have no IT folks.