Tape backup for MacOS X 10.4 ?

[Concorde-SST]

Hello guys,

I work with an apple G5 and OSX 10.4. I´ve got a LaCie Bigger Disk
Extreme with 1 Terabyte full of photoshop files - now since the
disk is full I don´t want to make extra DVD backups (if so, I´d need
200+ DVD´s!!).

And I heard something about tape backups - but unfortunately never
saw one on a mac (semiprofessional user).

Is there anybody who can help me getting some informations?!

thanks very much!

Andreas Suchert
Concorde-SST

[Jonathan Wienke]

Don't bother with tape. It's slow and exprensive, and You'll get a much faster, cheaper, more reliable, and easier-to-use result if you buy a Firewire or USB 5.25" drive enclosure and a removable drive docking system with drive tray that adapts a standard 3.5" IDE drive to the enclosure. Buy some IDE hard drives and extra drive trays to match (the extra trays are about $12 each) and you have backup storage limited only by the size and number of drives you purchase. Then simply copy the folders from your terabyte device to the external drive and swap drives when they get full.

[Chris Sanderson]

Excellent advice! Tape is so slow as to be a liability

But Andreas, I have an old LV-SCSI tape drive that is yours for the asking if you really want to go that route  

Chris S

[Concorde-SST]

Don't bother with tape. It's slow and exprensive, and You'll get a much faster, cheaper, more reliable, and easier-to-use result if you buy a Firewire or USB 5.25" drive enclosure and a removable drive docking system with drive tray that adapts a standard 3.5" IDE drive to the enclosure. Buy some IDE hard drives and extra drive trays to match (the extra trays are about $12 each) and you have backup storage limited only by the size and number of drives you purchase. Then simply copy the folders from your terabyte device to the external drive and swap drives when they get full.

Yeah, thanks Jonathan,

I think you´re right. I´ve looked around and found tape streamers
to be very expensive. Yes, they´re slow, but I don´t care, just for
security it will be ok. For the fast work I use the big disk.

I think I´ll purchase another LaCie disk - a 250GB or 500 GB one
and staple them - or if I find something like you recommended.

For Macs you don´t have much choice...since I don´t have IDE,
my ports are S-ATA, FW800, FW400 and USB 2.0. I think IDE
would be too slow.

No thank you, Chris, keep your old tape streamer :-) Btw - for your
videos - what storage solution do you use?! - see you in Namibia! -

best regards,

Andreas Suchert
Concorde-SST

[Jonathan Wienke]

The drive type is determined by the enclosure you get, which determines whether the drive that goes in the enclosure is IDE, SATA, or whatever. The only thing that matters to the computer is whether the enclosure has USB or Firewire connectors.

[francois]

Andreas ,
As Jonatham and Chris suggested, I would stay clear of tape backups. But if you insist, Exabyte provides - expensive - Mac OS X compatible tape systems.

Francois

[Concorde-SST]

Thanks,

Exabyte really is pro stuff I guess - and too expensive for
my needs. I just don´t understand why they ´re that
expensive - I always guessed that harddisks are harder
to manufacture than tape drives - but maybe its economics...

Another friend guessed to buy another HDD and wait for
the upcoming new DVD standard (either BluRay or HD-DVD -
I for my part hope for BluRay - more capacity!).

Well, time will tell - but for now I´m travelling again...

thanks again,

best,

Concorde-SST

[AJSJones]

Jonathan, Do you have a particular FW or USB hotswap/tray system you favor?  

Chris, Jonathan, anyone:

What about SATA systems and the host card, such as here or here ?  Are these better, faster, more reliable, futureproof, cheaper...

I will soon face the same issue as Andreas but am considering getting back to video, now it's HD and accessible $wise.  So RAID/speed might be more important to me than sheer storage space.  

Chris - since the video threads disappeared, do you have thoughts on a system that could serve this kind of double duty : sometime RAID for video, periodic swap for archive/backup, or would it just be add FW drives as you need the space and use an internal SATA drive for video.  I just haven't kept up with the recent developments, so please forgive any newbie type questions  

Thanks
Andy

[Jonathan Wienke]

The enclosure I'm using is a USB 2.0 made by ADS Technologies, and the drive dock I'm using is the SanMax PMD-96i-IDE mobile dock. The enclosure is probably not the fastest one out there, but it was cheap and has been very stable.

[Concorde-SST]

Jonathan, Do you have a particular FW or USB hotswap/tray system you favor?  

Chris, Jonathan, anyone:

What about SATA systems and the host card, such as here or here ?  Are these better, faster, more reliable, futureproof, cheaper...

I will soon face the same issue as Andreas but am considering getting back to video, now it's HD and accessible $wise.  So RAID/speed might be more important to me than sheer storage space.  

Chris - since the video threads disappeared, do you have thoughts on a system that could serve this kind of double duty : sometime RAID for video, periodic swap for archive/backup, or would it just be add FW drives as you need the space and use an internal SATA drive for video.  I just haven't kept up with the recent developments, so please forgive any newbie type questions  

Thanks
Andy

Hello Andy,

I think you may look to LaCIe too - they have some nice things like
you showed. The Burly things look questionnable to me - they
seem to be a lesser copy of LaCie.

Look here:

LaCie

I may be biased - because I like the design of LaCie...and since four
years I never had any issues with those products. They may be
a little expensive, but worth the cost IMHO.

About being futureproof - no, they aren´t of course. You always will
be forced to step up with standards in storage. Better? I don´t know.
Faster? Yes, they´re much much faster than tape.

Reliable? I don´t know, never used tape. But I think tape is more
reliable.

Also - I´d be interested in what Chris has to tell - I suggest him
and Michael Reichmann to invest something in Forum backup!

best,

Andreas.

[AJSJones]

Andreas,
Thanks for the thoughts.  I didn't mean futureproof forever
I'm still in the early stages of research on this, and would like to stick to IBM/Hitachi or Seagate drives.  Maxtor and WD are ones either I or friends have had problems with.  Do you happen to know what LaCie uses?  Their swappable units seem quite pricey but they do "look" nice and I've heard quite a few speak well of them.
Thanks Jonathan, I'll check them out - I like the combo of cheap and stable for backup/archive  

Andy

[Concorde-SST]

Andreas,
Thanks for the thoughts.  I didn't mean futureproof forever
I'm still in the early stages of research on this, and would like to stick to IBM/Hitachi or Seagate drives.  Maxtor and WD are ones either I or friends have had problems with.  Do you happen to know what LaCie uses?  Their swappable units seem quite pricey but they do "look" nice and I've heard quite a few speak well of them.
Thanks Jonathan, I'll check them out - I like the combo of cheap and stable for backup/archive  

Andy

Andy,

you´re welcome - well, for the foreseeable future I think
you have to look at the MTBF-Time (mean time between
failure or so) of HDD´s - good ones have about half a
million hours (but I may be wrong already) - and this
adds up for continuous use of real life time of about three
years.

I won´t use them longer for critical data - then I´d buy
another one or swap or backup. Some people use them
for only two years. Its just how much you value your
stored data.

For maximum security a RAID array is the best solution
IMHO - so more than one identical copy of data on an
array of HDD´s. Expensive, but fast and safe!

A friend of mine is a Seagate freak - they are some of the
best ones around - especially for Windows users.

No, I don´t know which brand LaCie
is using - but for the given price and quality I guess one
of the major manufacturers.

The internal HDD of my Mac is a Maxtor - I´ve got the
Mac for about two years and never had a crash or some-
thing like this - maybe its the Mac?! :-)

take care!

Andreas.

[Jonathan Wienke]

Reliable? I don´t know, never used tape. But I think tape is more reliable.

This is sadly not the case. Tape cartridges are more prone to wear out with use and become unreadable than hard drives, and are also more likely to deterirate in storage. Tape requires physical contact between the R/W heads and the tape, which means wear occurs on the surface of the medium each time the tape is read or written. Additional wear occurs as the tape is transported through the mechanism of the tape ad drive. Because the tape must be thin and flexible, it must be made of materials that are more fragile and prone to break down over time than the aluminum or glass of a HD platter, and if the tape is stretched, crinkled by a drive malfunction, or becomes brittle and cracks, data is lost.

The only mechanical wear points on a HDD are the bearings of the platter spindle and the arm housing the R/W head(s). The R/W heads and the platter never touch, and consequently there is no wear there. I've had far more problems with tape data loss than hard drive crashes, and most hard drive crashes are due to viruses or OS glitches, not physical malfunctions.

[61Dynamic]

For Macs you don´t have much choice...since I don´t have IDE,
my ports are S-ATA, FW800, FW400 and USB 2.0. I think IDE
would be too slow.

Don't worry about the speed differences between SATA and IDE. With todays current drives there really isn't any difference. Very few SATA drives are faster than IDE drives.

And as said, as far as closures go, it doesn't matter since either tech will slow down to the speed of either FireWire or USB 2.0.

Do you happen to know what LaCie uses?

Maxtor. At least mine is. Can't speak for the newer models.

[Concorde-SST]

Jonathan,

I guess you´re wrong about reliability of tapes. Of course you´re right
when you use them too often, they´ll deteriorate. The same goes to
Harddisks (but there much longer lasting).

I was guessing to use a tape only once or twice, then store it at a safe
place. Then I guess it is safer than anything else (except optical medias).
If you store them in a small faraday´s box (metal box) in a high and dry
place - then they´re lasting a long time.

Enterprise users will know this better - maybe there are some folks
around who read our thread...

anyway - my decision is now forming without tape medias...

all the best!! + thanks again,

Andreas.

[Concorde-SST]

For Macs you don´t have much choice...since I don´t have IDE,
my ports are S-ATA, FW800, FW400 and USB 2.0. I think IDE
would be too slow.

Don't worry about the speed differences between SATA and IDE. With todays current drives there really isn't any difference. Very few SATA drives are faster than IDE drives.

And as said, as far as closures go, it doesn't matter since either tech will slow down to the speed of either FireWire or USB 2.0.

Do you happen to know what LaCie uses?

Maxtor. At least mine is. Can't speak for the newer models.

Hello Daniel,

O.k. - I agree about speed difference between IDE and S-ATA. A quick
question to my pro friend solved my uncertainty there. He mentioned
that if you have the choice between both of them, you should use S-ATA
because he sees more potential in it - in terms of market spread and
costs. I´m not that much into this - so I have to believe.

I don´t understand why "either tech will slow down to the speed of
either FW or USB 2.0" - can you explain that? I always thought that
these "techs" are separated from each other (at least on my G5 Apple)
so they won´t affect each other´s transfer speed.

And - my big 1 TB FW800 drive is incredibly fast - about 88 MB/s
(but not now - too full) - I can´t see much faster solutions ex-
cept SCSI-320 in network surroundings.

all the best and a great week,

Andreas.

[francois]

I don´t understand why "either tech will slow down to the speed of
either FW or USB 2.0" - can you explain that? I always thought that
these "techs" are separated from each other (at least on my G5 Apple)
so they won´t affect each other´s transfer speed.

I guess Daniel wanted to say that the bottleneck was not in the drive but rather FireWire or USB 2.0.

Francois

[61Dynamic]

I don´t understand why "either tech will slow down to the speed of
either FW or USB 2.0" - can you explain that? I always thought that
these "techs" are separated from each other (at least on my G5 Apple)
so they won´t affect each other´s transfer speed.

I guess Daniel wanted to say that the bottleneck was not in the drive but rather FireWire or USB 2.0.

Francois

Exactly.

FW800 is the only one in the bunch that can match the speeds of a internal HD given the enclosure is well built (although I've seen some FW800 drives that run slower than USB2).

What company built your External BTW?

I guess you´re wrong about reliability of tapes. Of course you´re right
when you use them too often, they´ll deteriorate. The same goes to
Harddisks (but there much longer lasting).

I agree with Jonathan's assessment of tapes. In addition, a tape can "bleed" (magnetic data from one part of the tape effects another part of the tape that's in contact with it) over time corrupting data. It's not  long-term storage solution by any means.

Corps use them to back up entire servers and/or databases in one swoop and they tend to do so on a regular and frequent basis.

If you want to make a exact backup of one of your disks on your mac, then buy a drive that's the same size as the drive to be backed up. Then use Carbon Copy Cloner to duplicate the drive.

CCC can be set up to automatically backup on a schedule or just backup a certain directory.

Another solution is to use Applescript to run and rsync backup which can be run automaticaly via an iCal event.

[Chris Sanderson]

I use extra LaCie FW800 D2 drives for all my backups. HDV video is simply stored on the original camera tapes when it is not being edited.

I have used Retrospect for years from the days of backing up to floppy disc sets to today's FW800 drives. But as of last night, I am no longer going to use it.

One of my LaCie drives became corrupted. Unfortunately in a absent-minded moment I used the 'Repair Disk' command of Apple's Disk Utility. I should have used Disk Warrior because without warning, DU overwrote the corrupt directory structure and lost all my files for the authoring of LLVJ-13. No worries I thought, I would simply restore them from Retrospect's files on another drive. Well, all my files for every previous DVD authoring were restorable but not those for LLVJ-13. Somehow my scripting of Retrospect's backups had missed all the new files (I still don't know how). Carbon Copy Cloner from now on. Or a network RAID

CS

[AJSJones]

Thanks Chris, and sorry to hear about the "forced" switch to CCC.

For your HD editing, do you use the internal (?) SATA in the G5 and find it sufficient?  If it meets your needs, it would surely meet mine, and all I'd need would be back-up/archive for my "stills"
Andy