On 21 April 2017 at 15:55, Rob Malpass via Hampshire < hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk> wrote: > > Hi all > > Is DAT still a viable backup medium if you want USB and to avoid optical disks? > > I’ve got about 8Tb to backup and for various reasons don’t fancy: LTO, BluRay, Cloud or HDD (i.e. NAS). I know DAT’s quite old (and I might even be forced to use DAT160 because of cost) but if it’ll do the archiving (write once read seldom) job I have in mind for 8Tb (even if that’s a lot of tapes) I’d be happy. >
Hi, You don't say how long you need the keep the data for. I store my data (mainly old pictures) on HDD that are left offline. About once every 5 years, I buy new HDD, spin up the old one, and make a new copy of the data onto the new HDD. I keep the data on at least 2 HDDs. Even with backup tape, you still need to refresh it, buy new tapes, and copy the old data over once in a while. It is a myth that CD/DVD last a long time. Google says they can last 200 years. I have found CD/DVDs can degrade after only a few years. Generally, the plastic in them tends to degrade, which make the data on the unreadable. They are also quite highly dependent on the CD/DVD drive that wrote them. A CD written on one drive, might not be readable on another drive. I quite like using HDD, because the data is locked away in quite a strong metal case. One thing to watch out for on backups. Make sure you keep a catalogue. I.e. So you know which files are on which storage mediums. Without that, if one fails, you won't know what has been lost! I keep a list of filenames/paths/sha256sum. So, if one is lost, I can be fairly sure that I have the correct file to replace it from the second copy. Unless you do this, when you come back in 5 years, you will have forgotten where everything is. Some data I have, that I really never wish to ever loose, I just post it to the internet somewhere, and it never gets forgotten!!! Kind Regards James
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