[mythtv-users] Migrating RAID

[John Drescher]

> I'm always kind of leery about buying used tape drives, because
> they're such cantankerous devices.  You really, really want a
> warranty when you get a tape drive.
The problem here is for a home user is at that your tape drive will
either be too small where the media costs way more than hard drives or
the tape drive will cost more than the machine it is backing up.

I have a VXA-1 drive that I bought years ago for around $600 that sits
on a shelf because at 33GB / tape I find the tapes too expensive to
backup my data although 75% of this is from MythTV and I guess I am ok
if I loose some of my shows.

> You might even want a spare
> drive so you can restore from an older tape when the drive eats your
> most recent backup.  Years ago I bought three used DDS drives in
> succession, and all died within six months.  The DLT1 tape robot I
> mentioned having SCSI problems with, in that thread, also jammed
> three tapes over the space of four years, requiring factory repair
> each time.  (In each case the fault was with the drive, not the
> loading mechanics.)
>
I guess the good thing here for me is that I have access to DLT and
LTO drives at work if I bought one of these drives and they went bad.

> I've kind of soured on tape as a backup medium.  Too expensive, too
> unreliable.
>
I am not sure I could consider hard drives backup medium but I guess
for the home user they probably are the best method as long as you
replace them every 3 to 5 years.

John