[ccp4bb]: system backup devices : summary

["Ingo P. Korndoerfer" <korndoer@lmb.uni-muenchen.de>]

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hi everybody,

as promised, here is the writeup of replies to my inquiry about system 
backup devices. the *s denote the number of people mentioning the 
respective devices :

general :
-------

- one user found that tapes (in general) are not reliable for long 
  term storage, but should be o.k. for backups (*)

- one user pointed out www.transtec.de for good prices on DDS-4 systems
  (*)

about different media :
---------------------

- DLT tape is highly praised, albeit expensive (***)

- DAT (at least the older ones) was reported to be problematic 
  from the hardware side (brake down of tape drive and frequent cleaning
  required) (**)
  
  seems like other people have been content with DDS-3 and DDS-4 (**)

- An ecrix VXA (www. ecrix.com) system was reported to be relatively cheap
  (as compared to mammoth) and very dependable (*)

- one user is in the process of switching everything over to
  a backup server, doing all the backups via ethernet on an array of 
  80Gbyte hard discs. thanks for re-emphasizing the difference 
  between backup and archiving ! (*)


should i get more replies, triggered by this one,
i'll post again. thanks, again, to everybody who replied.


                                     ingo