5 TB data BU
A fifth gen LTO tape drive might be an idea. They are fast enough that they can bring most PCs to their knees when it comes to I/O. Plus, 1.4TB native capacity per tape is pretty respectable.
But how much are these Enterprise level tape drives? I have no idea, but I expect they are REALLY expensive. $50,000 per unit? Anyone with an idea of their average cost?
This is a huge question for me - how to backup 5 TB of data using a realistic, a cost-effective work-flow.
I had a discussion with with toke lahti a few pages back in the thread, about archiving to Blu-ray. I have serious doubts about its unproven long-term viability as an archive medium, though he seems to take it on faith that Blu-ray will manage to hold its data much longer than DC-R or DVD-R.
What are the hypothetical archive options?
1. Tape. While expensive high-end units are still the enterprise solution, I have not used a tape drive in years. I think there is a reason these have dropped off the map for smaller offices and workgroups - the small size of tapes (40 GB / 104 compressed) and SLOW speeds (5 GB/hour max, probably less for compressed) mean the smaller workgroup versions would be cumbersome with 5 TB of data. That is 50-125 tapes, for each backup copy, and 1000 hours to make each copy.
2. Online. While these options exist, they start getting expensive beyond 100 GB of data. SLOW upload times... $50/month per 100GB = $2500/month for my 5 TB. Not to mention some of this might end up on HDD (see #4) at the data warehouse's location anyway. Again, $30,000 a year might not be expensive for a larger company, but for small business it is a bit of cash.
3. Optical. I've had some problems in the past with failed CD-R's, so I am a bit more cautious about this than other users. Nevertheless, let's look at Blu-ray. 25GB per disk (single sided) means 200 disks, at $6 each. Still $1200, plus my time to record 200 disks (not including updates). Double sided would reduce the number of disk to 100, and the recording time as well, but these run about $25 each, so that is $2500. If I knew this was a real, long-term archival option, it would be worth the time. But the longevity of Blu-ray disk is still unproven, and both CD-R and DVD-R had MUCH shorter lives in actual use than were asserted early in their development.
4. HDD. Correct me if I am wrong, but this is the only viable way I see to archive 5 TB of data. My solution is to have triple backups of the 5TB, besides my original. I further plan to move each of the three to a new set of HDD in about three years time. Transfer speeds (with eSATA) are 100 MB/sec and storage costs for each 5TB BU is about $300-400 at today's prices. One set is in a safe deposit box at my bank. I guess I could ship a fourth set of disks to another location (2000 miles away) in case of an EMP!
Am I missing something? Is there some other option besides HDDs? What solution do other smaller, high storage-need workplaces use?