[geeks] Dying DAT72 drive?

[Mark]

On 23 Jul 2008, at 02:47, Lionel Peterson wrote:

> I'd say so - but that is based on what you say, and my near- 
> ignorance of those drives ;^)
>
> Seriously, if you start to question your backup tape drive, I think  
> you need to replace it right away...

Hence why I asked on here, I am now starting to doubt the drive, *not  
the media*, and have exhausted all avenues of resolution.

>> Are USB2.0 ones any good? I don't fancy swapping over an internal  
>> one,
>> it'd mean having the server out for over an hour and I don't want
>> that. USB 2.0 would be hot-plug and at worst a reboot cycle, right?
>
> Your current drive is SCSI, doesn't the server have an external SCSI  
> port you could hang a new drive off of?

The SCSI card has 2 VHDM SCSI ports on it, but the problems are that  
A) the cables cost a mint for them and B) I'm damned if I can find ay  
external SCSI drives anywhere, DLT or DAT!? Also - are VHDC SCSI ports  
hot-connect?

I thought DLT drives were mega-bucks but actually they aren't any  
more. I only need about 80GB of backup space, so a DLT 80/160 tape  
would handle that no sweat.

Also, any brand recommendations?

> Also, an hour of downtime (again, speaking from ignorance) doesn't  
> *seem* that bad, esp. if you wind up with good backups going forward.

Means I've gotta do it outside work time, and I don't get paid for  
that :P

Your right, of course. What I've more got the jello-legs about is  
touching shit inside the box. I've always have this paranoia about  
stuff working A-OK for years until you disturb it. I'd rather not open  
the box if I don't have to.

> I think having the tape drive internal to the server your backing up  
> (as opposed to local) is only good in smaller, non-critical  
> applications (SOHO/SMB-class applications), if downtime is that big  
> a problem, I'd suggest considering a dedicated backup machine to  
> pull data over the network, so that when the tape drives fail, the  
> only machine impacted is the backup machine...

That's not a bad idea ("Of course it's a good idea!" - God (Monty  
Python and the Holy Grail)). What concerns me is the addition of  
another machine running 24/7. Would something like a PIII-900 handle  
that kind of task sufficiently? I'd have thunk it ought to if it's  
only piping network data to a tape drive...

-- 
Mark Benson

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"Never send a human to do a machine's job..."