Chapter 9. Backup Hardware

How do you decide which type of backup drive to purchase? There are big drives, small drives, fast drives, slow drives, quick-acting drives, slow-acting drives, tape drives, optical drives, disk drives behaving as disk drives, disk drives emulating tape drives and tape libraries, and disk targets with data de-duplication features. This decision actually is easier to make than you might think. It's certainly easier than deciding on a backup product. There are only eight critical decision factors in the decision, and this chapter covers each of these factors in detailincluding data to help you decide which backup drive is appropriate for you. Specific manufacturers' offerings are presented briefly, but due to the changeable nature of this information, they will not be covered in detail in this book. This chapter also discusses common questions about backup hardware, such as compression, density, cleaning, and media usage. Hopefully it will answer your questions in this area and assist you in getting the most out of your backup hardware.

As in other places in the book, please note the use of the term backup drive here. More than ever before, it's a good possibility that your backup drive may not be a tape drive. It may be a disk drive acting like a disk drive, a disk drive emulating a tape drive or tape library, or some type of optical drive.