Lto tape experience and cleaning question - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: cncjerry
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 04, 2021, 08:57:57 am
content: After building a private cloud server for my home, I needed backup. Even using ZFS mirrored raid I was still, concerned about disk reliability for offsite storage. So I went with a LTO4 drive to start. The drive didnt cost that much but the challenge was reliable power. The drive I purchased was made to be installed in an HP server like the one I have but I had that filled with small form factor 15k rpm drives so I used an old scsi dat drive case. But the power supply wasn't strong enough and I was getting errors. So I purchased a PC power supply and wired it up. The drive was now happy and worked well. Right around then I found a Tandberg lto4 tape loader on Craig's list with fiber channel to scsi router and a FC card for $90. Though it worked, it wasn't as fast as my SAS connected LTO4. So in looking at the drive and loader, i just loved watching that tape loader by the way, i thought I could swap the loader's scsi lto4 for my SAS lto4 drive and it worked. I then recently found a new LTO5 drive at a very reasonable price that is almost twice as fast as my lto4. Only thing was after purchasing the lto5, the ACI connector that links the loader and drive together didnt match in pin counts. So I got the manuals for lto4 and lto5 and found I just had to flip the connector over and all the pins matched. There seems to be a big technical jump between the lto4 and lto5.So now I can backup everything on my 15TB server and throw the important tapes in the back of my car incase we have a CATASTROPHIC. I keep pictures, home movies, tax files, etc backed up in my car thinking worst case I would still have the important stuff. The LTO5 drives have very high sustained and burst throughput rates so backups are fast.I see where people have cleaned the tape heads manually and was wondering if this type of cleaning was effective? One of the lto4 drives I have started getting file mark errors for some reason. I ran the cleaning tape twice and still the same. It had been sitting for a while, has dedicated power and worked fine last use.Anyway, I'm sold on the lto tape format. It is fast, lasts just about forever (30yrs) and the tapes being sealed are very portable. Backing up to DVD or bluray was a waste of time and studies where I work questioned the long term storage length of optical media. The cartridges have a raw capacity of 1.5TB and with compression do a pretty good job overall.Jerry

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2021, 10:03:05 am
content: Personally I am fine with DVD-ram. I use them for small backups (4.2GB)

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 06, 2021, 08:59:07 am
content: I'm another one who uses LTO. Albeit the horribly slow and low capacity LTO2, I should get around to upgrading it some day to something more modern.I used to manage LTO tape arrays in the early-to-mid 2000's and loved them (although software like Symantec BackupExec left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth).I love tape technology. It's reliable and consistent and as long as you don't mind waiting for data to be written or read from tape, it's a pretty cost effective option, particularly if you don't mind using second-hand equipment. There is also something nostalgic about it.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2021, 09:58:47 am
content: @Halcyon have you ever used DDS4?

author: Ranayna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2021, 11:18:18 am
content: I would reconsider using your car for tape storage.Of course depending on your location, cars can get hot in the summer, and freezing cold in winter. Absolute not a good environment to store tapes that you want to rely on if shit hits the fan.Rent a bank locker. Or encrypt the tapes and store them at someone else's house. Something with at least mediocre temperature control.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 06, 2021, 01:09:13 pm
content: Quote from: DiTBho on September 06, 2021, 09:58:47 amNah, DDS3 is as far as I got.