Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?]

[Ali]

> In the case of spinning rust, what brand is most reliable?  I've seen
> dreadful reports of DOA drives from Western Digital, fewer from
> Seagate,
> but I don't know about Hitachi, Samsung, etc.

Caveat: my experience is as a home "power user"

In my experience it all depends: I have a set of Seagate "consumer grade"
SATA drives that are now nearly 10 years old that have been spinning in a
RAID 6 almost 24x7 w/o issues. These were bought when Seagate offered a FIVE
year warranty. I've also bought a number of the same type of drives in the
past five years but with only a three year warranty and the failure rate on
those have been abysmal!

Now days I buy "enterprise class drives" (have a RAID 6 w/ 4TB Hitachi
drives and RAID 5 setups w/ Seagate ES and Cheetah drives). They cost a
pretty penny but the peace of mind is worth it. The also have better
warranty service. 

I've never bothered w/ WD drives so I can't comment on those.

If I could find a cheap tape backup solution I would love it but anything
capable of reasonably backing up 20TB is well out of the consumer pocket
book.

-Ali