MikePA
Super Moderator
I've been backing my PC up for as long as I've owned a PC. I started out with Fastback Plus (remember the cheetah on the front of the box? /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif) and backed up to floppy disks. As the hard drive capacity on my PC grew, I migrated to tapes and Backup Exec software. The final iteration, up until last night, was using <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.dantz.com>Retrospect Backup</A> using 10G/20G Travan tapes. With a 30G drive in my laptop and 26G on my desktop PC, this was barely adequate.
Two weekends ago, my desktop tape drive gave up the ghost. Halfway through a backup, the software reported 'Bad tape or heads need cleaning'. I cleaned the heads and used a new tape ($35 each). Same results. Then I tried backing up my laptop to a USB Travan tape drive. It took over 12 hours. So, I began looking at buying the next step up in tape drive capacity. /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif The next step up is VXA/DAT/DLT, the cheapest of which costs almost $1,000 for the drive (VXA) and $75 for the tapes. This was not a good situation. I could get a lot of tractor attachments for what I was going to have to spend on a tape solution.
Then it occurred to me, hard drives are cheap, why not back up to a hard drive? However, all the drive bays in my desktop PC are full, plus I didn't want to backup my laptop over my network (slow). What did I do? I implemented a solution that was 'born' on the Mac platform. I purchased an external Firewire (IEEE 1384) hard drive. Firewire is approximately 30 times faster than USB, in fact many people who do video editing on PCs or Macs use external Firewire drives. I still use Retrospect Backup and create an image of the hard drive on my latop. Since the drive is external, I simply disconnect from the laptop and connect it to my desktop and do another backup. No $35/$75 tapes and no tape drives.
<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.adstech.com>ADSTech</A> has complete kits, including the hard drive, external enclosure and Firewire card for sale.
40G - $280
80G - $360
120G - $470
If you're pushing the limits of your backup solution (you are backing up, aren't you?), you might want to look into this.
Two weekends ago, my desktop tape drive gave up the ghost. Halfway through a backup, the software reported 'Bad tape or heads need cleaning'. I cleaned the heads and used a new tape ($35 each). Same results. Then I tried backing up my laptop to a USB Travan tape drive. It took over 12 hours. So, I began looking at buying the next step up in tape drive capacity. /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif The next step up is VXA/DAT/DLT, the cheapest of which costs almost $1,000 for the drive (VXA) and $75 for the tapes. This was not a good situation. I could get a lot of tractor attachments for what I was going to have to spend on a tape solution.
Then it occurred to me, hard drives are cheap, why not back up to a hard drive? However, all the drive bays in my desktop PC are full, plus I didn't want to backup my laptop over my network (slow). What did I do? I implemented a solution that was 'born' on the Mac platform. I purchased an external Firewire (IEEE 1384) hard drive. Firewire is approximately 30 times faster than USB, in fact many people who do video editing on PCs or Macs use external Firewire drives. I still use Retrospect Backup and create an image of the hard drive on my latop. Since the drive is external, I simply disconnect from the laptop and connect it to my desktop and do another backup. No $35/$75 tapes and no tape drives.
<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.adstech.com>ADSTech</A> has complete kits, including the hard drive, external enclosure and Firewire card for sale.
40G - $280
80G - $360
120G - $470
If you're pushing the limits of your backup solution (you are backing up, aren't you?), you might want to look into this.
