Offline Storage for Hard Drives? 47
rrsipov asks: "I work at a small company that processes a good deal of DV (mainly) format video. After trying a number of different technologies we have settled down to using removable hard drives for file storage and backup. When a set of projects are complete, the hard disk they are stored on can be removed and stored offline so that the material is available in for possible future use. The problem is that unlike tapes, etc... we haven't been able to find any good storage cabinet type solutions, and have resorted to a pretty much ad-hoc system of filing the drives. Does Slashdot know of any such system? Ideally we'd like to start with something small, and scale from there if we like the system."
Re:Shelf life? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shelf life? (Score:2)
Re:Shelf life? (Score:2)
Re:Shelf life? (Score:3, Interesting)
I still have it anyway. Hopefully I might be able to sell it as an antique or something when I get old...
Re:Shelf life? (Score:2)
Bulk pack boxes (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bulk pack boxes (Score:1)
Don't forget the dessicants! (Score:2)
Re:Don't forget the dessicants! (Score:2)
Re:Don't forget the dessicants! (Score:2)
Why not tapes...? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why not tapes...? (Score:2)
I'd recommend looking into Exabyte's [exabyte.com] VXA-320 (VXA-3) tapes. They promise 500 writes (as compared to an average of 50 writes with DAT), their "packet technology" provides for error correction and does not depend on a continuous stream of data to efficiently write to tape, and the quality of construction of Exabyte's VXA drives appears to be very high.
The cost of VXA is very reasonable, especially when compared to technolog
Re:Why not tapes...? (Score:2)
If you look on CDW for a 250GB Western Digital hard drive [cdw.com], you'll find them for around $130.
Taking that into account, you're looking at buying over 50TB of storage capacity before you even come close to breaking even. It just doesn't make sense to go with tape given the cost of disk right now.
Re:Why not tapes...? (Score:2)
Do you have a link? (Score:2)
Do you have a link to research that shows that is correct?
Re:Do you have a link? (Score:1)
Tapes fail too, but it's usually over a much longer timeframe than hard drives. Data stored on tape medium is much more survivable during a mechanical failure than a hard drive.
Re:Do you have a link? (Score:1)
Stiction? (Score:2)
I know of no physical principle which would cause hard drives to stick now. It can be expected that the lubrication will migrate, but that should take decades.
A good cure for stiction was to rotate the drive quickly back and forth around the spindle axis. The inertia would break the spindle free. I've done that successfully.
Re:Stiction? (Score:1)
Took three smacks with a clawhammer right over (or under) the bearing to get them to spin (with power applied of course). Ran like that for the four years I maintained those machines, never had a bad sector. Love to see someone try that with a modern drive. ;
Re:Stiction? (Score:2)
If doing it by hand spun it up, it wasn't stiction.
I actually had one 40MB Seizegate RLL disk that I couldn't even free up by whacking it with a screwdriver. I actually took the cover off the drive, spun th
That's the way to free a stuck spindle. (Score:2)
RLL hard disks! Bad memories.
Re:Why not tapes...? (Score:2)
The real question is not "how much does storage cost per xB," but, "how much am I willing to risk not being able to recover what I need, when I need it?" That's the risk analysis, and then the cost analysis is "how likely is media failure for medium X, how much would it cost me to recover/reproduce the data stored on medium X, and, if that data was neither recoverable nor reproducable, how badly screw
Re:Why not tapes...? (Score:1)
Working In tech support gave a "everything is broken" outlook on
Re:Why not tapes...? (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, isn't that a significant minus for tapes. Especially since tapes aren't much cheaper than HDDs. And tape drives are very expensive.
If you've bought an LTO3 tape drive, and LTO4 tapes become cheap, you don't get a free LTO4 drive with each LTO4 tape.
Whereas if you have been using 250GB SATA drives as backup media, when 400GB SATA drives become cheap, yo
Re:Why not tapes...? (Score:2)
Re:Why not tapes...? (Score:1)
If you have a physically risky environment then sure tapes are better.
Hotswap bays (Score:2)
Hot swap cases (Score:2)
-Rick
Bookshelves. (Score:1)
Re:Bookshelves. (Score:2)
1) Keep those silver bags the drives come in and put the drives back in them before putting them on the shelf. They protect the drives electronics from damage caused by static electricity (which is a much bigger problem than you probably think)
Don't keep your drives in bookcases (Score:1)
Re:Don't keep your drives in bookcases (Score:1)
The El Cheapo solution (Score:1)
I haven't seen any IKEA-esque prefab shelving meant for HD cages. Of course, if you have the budget for it, many custom furniture contractors will build you a filing cabinet with shelves or pigeon holes that fit the dimensions of the HD cages. Not too
Re:The El Cheapo solution (Score:2, Funny)
If you pack them in salt, the cured drives could last for several years. A little spice, and the data will have just the right flavor when the drives are finally used.
The ancient Egyptians used ceremonial drives prepared in special enbalming fluids to accompany their kings on the journey to the afterlife. Little wooden server rooms on the ceremonial boats gave hope to the SysAdmin^H^H^H^H^H^HScribes of everlasting employment. If the drive wieghed more than
Use tape - drives can't just sit there unused (Score:2)
For tapes, the secret is to make and test multiple copies of the tape. I suggest 3. And pay a company that specializes is tape archives to store the tape.
Make sure you understand how to maintain your tape drive. Mostly make sure you use the cleaning tape to clean the heads on a very regular basis.
If you can afford it, get 2 dri
Re:Use tape - drives can't just sit there unused (Score:1)
You could do a periodic spin-up of a volume and check they're still alive, say one volume a week?
Re:Use tape - drives can't just sit there unused (Score:2)
Again if there is a multi year retension requirement of this data, then as they finish each project, the raid 5 will wind up being some 6 figure Netapp or EMC to hold all the old projects.
You still want to do an offsite archive of the data.
bullshit? (Score:2)
I call bullshit. Let's see some objective studies to back up this assertion.
Re:bullshit? (Score:1)
For years hard-drives have relied on Partial Response / Maximum Likelyhood
reading of data from the magnetic "bits"
( I think there are 20+ bits with the ECC, for every "byte" given to the outside world,
but don't know if that's before filesystem or not ), and
magnetic bits do oppose each other ( or pull each-other ), &
aren't immutable, & if you've ever tried reading data from old data-tapes
or old diskettes/floppies, then you know that bit-rot exists.
( also lost data in cheap CDRs/DVD-Rs -
Standard 19" racks (Score:2)
http://www.uptime4u.com/media.php [uptime4u.com]
http://205.234.135.191/v-web/gallery/data_storage/ media_data_ner [205.234.135.191]
http://205.234.135.191/v-web/gallery/data_storage/ media_data_dasco [205.234.135.191]
Of course, with all that data sitting in 12' of floor space, a little fire could do a whole lot of damage. Get off-site storage!!!
Unitrends (Score:2)
Use tape (Score:1)