Re: looking for opinions on hotswap SATA drives as a viable backup solution

> I'm in the process of putting together a new backup solution for one
> of our file servers and I wanted to throw my idea out there and see
> what sort of flaws there are in the plan, that I can't see myself.
>
> We've got a server that has outgrown its current tape backup (40/80
> dlt). The server will eventually pass 100gb of data. If I want to stay
> with tapes, I have to move up to a 100/200 LTO option which puts the
> drive cost alone at about $3000+, plus tapes. While this is definitely
> a viable option, it's still somewhat limited. The data we have on this
> server isn't going to compress much more than it already is, so
> basically when we hit 100gb, we have to shell out for another new tape
> system.

Another good tape drive is the Exabyte VXA-2 drive (80 / 160 GB) for
about $950 (internal) at www.pcconnection.com .  The tapes are about
$90 each.  That is what I am using right now.

I am thinking about moving to USB2 external drives.  You can get WD
200 GB USB2 drives for about $290 at  www.allstarshop.com .  They
are bulky though and do weigh about 5 pounds.  We have 3 spinning
daily backup hard drives that we use robocopy to make direct images
of all the drives on the network.   The advantage of this is that your
backup can be read on any pc that supports USB (and either FAT32 or
NTFS5/5.1).

Thanks,
Lynn