Re: Tape Changer/Juke Box

["Joseph C. Bender" <jcbender_(_at_)_benderhome_(_dot_)_net>]

At 11:47 PM 12/24/2003 -0500, Chuck Yerkes wrote:
>Quoting Mike Maki (mmaki_(_at_)_adelphia_(_dot_)_net):
>> I'm looking to get a SCSI tape changer/juke box and would like to know what
>> type or brand has been successful with i386 obsd. I was unsuccessful
with an
>> HP 40x6. Looking to backup about 150GB weekly with daily incrementals.
>
>Look to amanda and what that supports and you'll do just fine.
>
	I agree with this.  I'm seriously looking about migrating to amanda from
some homegrown backup scripts because there are features that it has that I
don't have reliably working yet on my systems.

I've got six boxes backing up to a box attached to a Big Drive Array that
does FULL backups every night of all that (But I also have a sizable backup
window to use) to a SDLT drive (which is wickedly fast, very yummy).

I'm not a really big fan of autoloaders because in quite a few situations,
it breaks the KISS princicple.  That being said, we've been looking at SDLT
autoloaders because of workload issues of our backup staff, as we've got
something like 6 tape drives right now, and changing out and tracking those
tapes on a manual nightly basis is overloading them as their other duties
are taking more of their time.

I'm finding that HP isn't what I want to be doing.  In fact, I'm looking at
everyone else other than HP, really.  I've had less-than-stellar support
from them in regards to problem solving and documentation.  Because they
tend to use the same drive mechanics everyone else does, I've found that
other vendor's documentation is very helpful in troubleshooting SCSI issues
on an HP drive!

It sort of sounds like you're planning on using a couple of tapes for the
full backup, then the rest of the tapes for an incremental backup
throughout the week.
Again, YMMV, and this is also personal preference, I have a major disdain
for incremental backups and using multiple tapes for backing up smaller
systems, again, given the costs of that autoloader, you could buy a very
nice SDLT/DLT1 drive and do full backups every night (Your tape costs will
be slightly higher).  At least contemplate doing differentials, if you can.
 There's nothing like having a tape failure right at tape number three when
you need to be at tape number five.

>With no clue about your network, on MY network, I might dump over
>a private network to a 200GB disk and then off to the DLT/AIT tape.
>
	Yes.  This works well, and I finally have a use for those secondary
embedded ethernet ports on my rack-mount boxes.  <grin>  This is how my
existing six boxes are doing it right now, even the ones that tar over NFS
have more than adequate performance.
What are your goals for this autoloader to do?


>I'm workign with a nice 5 drive/400 tape changer, but that's likely
>bit over your budget :)
>

Chuck:  <drool>  Who makes it?  How's the performance been for you?  I
don't need something that big, but maybe its little brother would do.  <grin.


Signing off, 

--
Joseph C. Bender
jcbender at benderhome dot net