Re: Tape/DVD Backup Suggestions?

You might try looking into DLT technology.  DLT tape drives will give
you 80Gb storage with ~6-12MB/s throughput.  They are an industry
standard supported by the heavyweights (HP/IBM/Dell) but a little more
pricey than your current DDS technology.

If you are looking for speed AND storage, I would suggest a combination
of disk and tape.  Back you 'production' data to a separate 'backup'
drive then write the 'backup' drive contents to tape.

If you have money to burn and require very little downtime during
backup, place your data on a mirrored disk.  During backup time split
the mirror and backup the stale mirror to tape.  Once you are done,
re-sync the stale mirror to your production mirror (which can be done
online).

My CDN$.02,
K.

Tony Reina wrote:

 > I'm looking into new ways of backing up the data in our lab, including
 > the PostgreSQL database. Currently, we have a single DDS-2 tape drive
 > capable of holding 8Gig compressed. However, it is slow (i.e. takes a
 > day to backup about 40 Gig of information), spans multiple tapes, and
 > makes it hard to find just a single file or two on the backup (i.e. I
 > have to go through many tapes before I can find and extract one of two
 > files).  Our CDRW backups are easier to manage and relatively fast,
 > but require dozens of CDRWs.
 >
 > Can anyone make suggestions on backup systems? I was thinking that
 > some sort of DVD writing system would be good for accessing one or two
 > files in the backup quickly.  It would probably also complete backups
 > faster. However, I think DVD's only hold a few Gigs on them. Are there
 > systems like with these features that could handle say 20 Gigs per
 > media?
 >
 > Thanks.
 > -Tony
 >
 > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
 > TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to majordomo@postgresql.org
 >
 >


--
Kurt Gunderson
   Senior Programmer
   Applications Development
   Lottery Group
Canadian Bank Note Company, Limited
Email: kgunders@cbnlottery.com
Phone:
613.225.6566 x326
Fax:
613.225.6651
http://www.cbnco.com/

"Entropy isn't what is used to be"

Obtaining any information from this message for the purpose of sending
unsolicited commercial Email is strictly prohibited.  Receiving this
email does not constitute a request of or consent to send unsolicited
commercial Email.