[list] [ale] Need advice on home back-up solution

[Greg Freemyer]

On Sun, 2003-09-28 at 18:02, David Corbin wrote:
> On Sunday 28 September 2003 17:51, Geoffrey wrote:
> > David Corbin wrote:
> > >>>Tapes are not really very good long-term storage.  I often run into
> > >>>trouble trying to read a tape that wasn't "just written".
> > >>
> > >>Define 'just written'?
> > >
> > > Anything older than a week, is not "just written".  Mind you, this is
> > > over the course of many years of working with tapes, but not recently. 
> > > And I'm not saying the majority, just that it happens often enough.
> >
> > I would say that if you've got tapes that don't last more than a week,
> > you've got a lousy tapes or some other problem.  I've re-read tapes that
> > were over a year old.  Tape failure within a couple weeks just shouldn't
> > happen.
> 
> 
> You're right, it shouldn't.  But it does.  In my experience, tapes ARE 
> fragile.    I've stopped using tapes (as you noticed).

I think you are over generalizing.

Low end tapes like Travan, DDS 2, DDS 3, etc. are notorious for there
un-reliability.

Higher-end tapes like DLT, LTO, AIT, should be reliable, but IIRC a new
tape drive in this class is $4K plus.

Greg