All about Tapes and Tape Drives

If you plan on backing up the data on your network server's hard drives, you need something to back up the data to. You can copy the data onto CDs, but a 500GB hard drive would need more than 750 CDs to do a full backup. That's a few more disks than most people want to keep in the closet. You could use DVDs, but you'll need about a dozen of them, and it will take an hour or so to fill each one. So you'll have to devote a Saturday to creating your backup.

Tip 

Because of the limitations of CDs and DVDs, most network administrators back up network data to tape. Depending on the make and model of the tape drive, you can copy as much as 800GB of data onto a single tape.

One of the benefits of tape backup is that you can run it unattended. In fact, you can schedule tape backup to run automatically during off hours, when no one is using the network. In order for unattended backups to work, you must ensure that you have enough tape capacity to back up your entire network server's hard drive without having to manually switch tapes. If your network server has only 100GB of data, you can easily back it up onto a single tape. However, if you have 1,000GB of data, invest in a tape drive that features a magazine changer that can hold several tapes and automatically cycle them in and out of the drive. That way, you can run your backups unattended.

Here are some additional thoughts concerning tape backups:

• A popular style of tape backup for small servers is Travan drives. Travan drives come in a variety of models with tape capacities ranging from 20GB to 40GB. You can purchase a 20GB drive for under $200.

• For larger networks, you can get tape backup units that offer higher capacity and faster backup speed than Travan drives but for more money, of course. DAT (digital audio tape) units can back up as much as 80GB on a single tape, and DLT (digital linear tape) drives can store up to 200GB on one tape. DAT and DLT drives can cost $1,000 or more, depending on the capacity.

• If you're really up the backup creek with hundreds of gigabytes to back up, you can get robotic tape backup units that automatically fetch and load tape cartridges from a library, so you can do complete backups without having to load tapes manually. Naturally, these units aren't cheap: The small ones, which have a library of about eight tapes and a total backup capacity of over 5,000GB, start at about $4,000.