Need advice on which backup media to use

[Grego]

Ok the deal is Im helping my sister in law, building a pc for her shop, and now Im not sure what kind of backup.system to use.

It doesnt have to be high capacity, but cheap and reliable. I was thinking about a Ls120-drive or a zip-drive. Anyone have any comments? It would be greatly appreciated.

Grego

[Jorden]

How much data is needed to be backed-up (backupped?) every day/week?

A tapestreamer is cheap as well, and might be more reliable than an LS-120 or Zip-drive.

Don't get me wrong, I have an LS-120 myself, and back up some files&folders to 10 LS-120 floppies regularly, but it's slow as hell to do so.

The plus side of an LS-120 is that you don't need additional software. Might be true for a Zip-drive as well. (If these drives are internal, anyway!)

Edit: even a second harddrive is a cheap means for a back-up. Considered putting in a small drive for that purpose only?

Jord.

[This message has been edited by Jorden (edited 25 May 2001).]

[Wombat]

I don't consider ZIP drives reliable. They fail at random. Iomega was sued in a class action, but somehow they managed to settle so that they only had to give rebates on future Iomega purchases (wtf?). We have (had?) about a dozen LS-120 drives in the labs I worked in. All but two drives failed in about a year.

What about CDR? or CDRW(recycle backup disks).

[Grego]

A cdr is not an option, because it has to be VERY simple to use - are the jaz drives any better?

The computer is to be used as a "cash-register" in a shop and just to be sure, the account-files for the IRS etc. has to be backed up just in case something bad happens. I dont think the amount of data is very large, but exactly how much I do not know - I will try and find out.

Tapestreamer might be a good idea, Ill suggest it.

So far thanks for the response, Ill be back

[The PIT]

Tape drives are cheap and have a fairly large capacity although modern hard drives even amke them struggle. It depends how much you've got to backup. On one system I've got 12 gig and this spreads across three tapes even with 8 gig capacity. One advantage of tape is you can slap the thing in knowing it's going to be a while before it needs changing so you can go out do something come back change the tape do something else etc.
If you just got a small amount of data and don't care about the operating system zips will do.
Other options are ghosting everything to spare drive.
One thing you got to do is make sure you can do a restore. Theres nothing like seeing someones face when they say "Oh I've got it all backed up" they fire up the backup program and the drive cannot be read. They never checked that the data could be restored a classic gotcha.

[Grego]

Well it seems that the solution is that they will lease a small laptop and make a lan, where the relevant datafiles will be copied at the end of every day.

Installing an extra hdd is unfortunately not an option, hence this solution. Thanks for the input though.

Grego

[Jorden]

I thought you were looking for a cheap and reliable way to make a backup?
"Well it seems that the solution is that they will lease a small laptop and make a lan". It is NOT a cheap, nor very reliable way to backup, but okay

We'll hear more about it

Jord.

[Grego]

Jorden I agree with you 100%, but given the rather strict criteria given with this assignment it seems as the best!? solution, and I do not make the decisions I try to contribute in any way I can.
If the zip-drives are that unreliable I do not see other ways as it's not an option to install a new hdd since the case is a special one.

I will report back how it is working though

[Ali]

Zip drives are ok.

Another internal hard drive is silly, because if something bad happens (fire/theft), you loose that hard drive too.

Ive seen people use compact flash cards and a usb reader for small data backups (64Mb or so).

They are ok speed wise, and are very robust.

We do daily zip backups at a friends work, then burn to CD every week. Every night all the important data files are ftp-ed offsite. Its all set up in a batch file thats run under a scheduler.

The laptop seems a very expensive way to do backups. If someone breaks into the shop, the laptop is sure to get nicked.

Ali

[EchoWars]

The early LS-120's were problematic, but later ones work just fine (I hung in there till they got better). The PANASONIC LS-120 LKM-F934 drive is bloody fast, although the originals were slow as snot. Cheap enough to try one out....