Re: Need help on Tape,Optical disk...
- From: "backupmeister@xxxxxxxxx" <backupmeister@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 22 May 2006 18:02:07 -0700
Not sure if I agree with everything Faeandar said, but I do agree in
part. The big advantage that disks have over tape or optical is that
you can put them in a RAID array to essentially remove any concerns
about reliability. No longer will the loss of a single piece of media
cause your storage process to fail.
I don't share Faeandar's opinion that tapes and optical are far more
reliable than disks. While I don't have a lot of experience with
optical, I do have extensive experience with both disk and tape in many
people's environments. If disks failed anywhere as often as tapes do,
most people I know would throw them out.
My personal opinion is that this unreliability comes from two things.
The first is the fact that tape (and optical) systems are open systems,
where the media must be injected and ejected from the drive,
introducing contaminants each time. Disk drives, on the other hand,
are closed systems -- no contaminants ever. In addition, the physical
media of tape (and some optical) is inherently more "wimpy" than the
media used in a disk drive. Disks can also handle more g-forces than
most tape cartridges I use on a regular basis. Drop a DLT or LTO
cartridge from shoulder-height, and you can expect some parts to come
flying off inside. In comparison, a powered-off disk drive could
handle a similar fall much easier.
Now... Power off a disk drive and set it on a shelf next to an ejected
tape drive and leave it there for five years. I'll trust the tape
every time in that scenario, as disks were not intended to be left
powered off that long with data.
The second reason that tape is less reliable is that people don't
stream their tape drives. They're sending 5 MB/s to a 60 MB/s drive,
or 10 MB/s to a 150 MB/s tape drive. The thing's constantly stopping
and starting, going into drive, then reverse, then drive, then reverse.
You do this enough, and you'll fail too. In contrast, disk drives can
go any speed you want them to. You want 150 MB/s? Fine. You want 1
KB/s? That's fine, too. Tape drives can't say that. The result is
really unreliable tape drives.
The proof's in the pudding. I've watched company after company convert
from tape to disk for backups, and they've watched their success rates
skyrocket. Is that because tapes were less reliable, or just because
disk is a better match for how backups behave? Either way, in a
real-world scenario, disks trump -- and disks in a RAID array trump
even further.
Now, as to optical, I don't have any data. I'm all about backups, and
people just don't use optical for backups -- the transfer rates simply
aren't high enough. I think we've finally reached double digits with
some of the formats, but the numbers are still way behind those of tape
or disk. However, if I had to store something on a media that I was
going to store for 7+ years, I'd use optical in a heartbeat.
.
- References:
- Need help on Tape,Optical disk...
- From: babi
- Re: Need help on Tape,Optical disk...
- From: Faeandar
- Need help on Tape,Optical disk...
- Prev by Date: Re: LUN sharing (DS4300 with storage partitions)
- Next by Date: Is LUN to SSCI, fd to file?
- Previous by thread: Re: Need help on Tape,Optical disk...
- Next by thread: virtualization newbie: virtualizing a storage application
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
