[Coco] CF and SD life expectancy

[Steven Hirsch]

On Wed, 27 Jul 2011, Jay Coleman wrote:

>> I'd *never* trust any archival function to optical media atm. I'm really 
>> hanging on some sort of 100% reliable, permanent archival medium, because 
>> even backing up to two HDD still makes me nervous! :(

> Then you are stuck with tape.  Expensive (at least for the drives), slow, but 
> very reliable tape.

Expensive unless you keep a close eye on eBay.  I picked up three LTO-2 
drives over the past few years and didn't pay more than $80 for any of 
them.  Since these are enterprise-class products, you can download 
comprehensive diagnostic software free from the vendor and ensure you
haven't purchased a lemon.

Both the tapes and the drives keep non-volatile operational logs and it's 
simple to find out POH, tape usage, etc.

Slow is all relative.  I can backup 300+ GB from my server to tape in less 
than an hour.

Steve


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