Quantum DDS-4 STD2401LW-SST 20 GB 40 GB

Advantages: Fast, reliable, Good Price
Disadvantages: No SCSI cable included, Not Great instructions

...I bought this for our office server which before-hand was running a DDS5 tape drive. I have to say the DDS5 backup system we had was excellent and never caused me any problems. We got to a point where we needed two tapes to do a backup, and considering we keep backups for up to a month, thats a hell of a lot more tapes we would have to buy. After a lot of research and learning about DLT and SDLT, we discovered the V160. DLT allows backups to 40GB (80GB Compressed) and SDLT is alot more (i forget the figures). DLT would not have been enough and SDLT is a hell of a lot more expensive. Quantums V160 is right in the middle of the two and each tape can store up to 160GB data if compressed. We managed to get the drive for around £700 and then bought a number of tapes. It was delivered direct from Quantum within a week. The one problem I... Read review

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Advantages: Good points. Obscenely easy way to rebuild a corrupted server.
Disadvantages: Bad points. Limited hardware and software support. Make sure your operating system can read all partitions.

...the appropriate termination. HP TapeAssure is provided on disk to check your SCSI configuration in Windows as well as other back up software, utilities and drivers. The same tape drive can be used for Unix and NetWare systems. Once that is done it is a mere snip to make a complete back up of all files on your server and create a disaster recovery “CD-ROM” on your back up tape. The SureStore DAT40 works best the tape standard DDS-4; the tape can store up to 40 GB of data from multiple disks and RAID arrays. And is fully backward compatible with DDS-2 and DDS-3. However, don’t bother using your old DDS-1 tapes, they won’t be written to on this machine. HP recommends that you test your server for compatibility before instituting any disaster recovery policy based on this hardware. Again this was just a case of rebooting the server and tape drive whilst... Read review

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Advantages: Small, lightweight, efficient, reliable. does what it says
Disadvantages: Tape, small capacity, price, slow, storage/usage issues

...of speed in reading and writing. It is slow. Really slooooow. Especially when you compress data to fit more onto the tape! Also of concern is tape storage. Just like audio and video cassettes, tapes wear out from over use, poor storage or handling so a tape is NOT for life. ~~~ Conclusion ~~~ With rapid developments in DVD storage and ever-falling prices, there really isn't any need to look at tape for your storage needs, especially not the DDS2 format. Each DGD120P cartridge will cost approximately £5 new and hold between 4 and 8 gigabytes of data. A new dual-layer DVD+R disc will hold 8.5 gigabytes of data and will also cost approximately £5 BUT will be much faster to backup to and restore from. A 4Gb DVD+RW will cost little more than £1 and can be written to several times (1000+) before needing replacement. Unless you like retro hardware... Read review

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