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- 14.12.05
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I would like to give you my experience report at this place, done with a good backup solution onto tape on a PowerMac running OS X. This solution is also affordable in my eyes for private users as I am.
As author of this thread I ask you not to start a discussion about external drive backup vs. tape backup. There are a lot of it in this forum already.
However I would like to invite everyone attaching his reports and questions here, who has experiences with tape backup methods on Macs or is interesting in doing this, too.
The reason for, why I stopped backing up onto external hard disk drives is, that I recognized that you need at least as big external drives as you use for internal ones. Why? If you do not have this, you'll reach very quickly the disk limit and won't be able to make incremental backups in a comfortable way as used any longer. Depending on what kind of data you work with, you make a couple of incremental backups and your disk will be full. Usually I have about 400 to 600 GB on my disks.
At that time you have to clean up your external disk and the fastest way is mostly to start making your backups from scratch, because most free backup applications that you are using privately do not support controlled deletion of files out of your backup sets. Or you buy a further external disk drive and spend money again.
Also the transfer rates mostly via USB or Firewire are not realy fast enough for big data volumes, what means that you need a couple of hours each time you run your backups, even if you clone your disk. Here I monitored that the transfer rate often decreases dramatically when working with a huge amount of data being processed at one time.
And other drawbacks are, that your external backup disk could be stolen wit your Mac - if you do not put it consequently down into the cellar, it could falls down, you could get a head crash or what else, so external drives are - in my optinion - no stable, secure or permant solution for your photos and movies, which are very important for you, aren't they?
So I locked for an affordable and secure solution among tape backup solutions, which lets me sleep well. At the beginning you have a little higher expense, however I think this is an investment over a longer period of time. So you could re-use it even if you change your Mac.
So I decided me to following equipment:
265 € ATTO Express UL4S PCI-X Ultra 320 SCSI-Controller (there is no other one beside, known to me)
150 € Used IBM LTO Ultrium1 SCSI Tape Drive bought via ebay
100 € 4 Tapes with 100 GB, until 200 GB compacted
ca. 500 € Archiware PresSTORE Backup, Licence for 1 tape drive and 1 client
Summa summarum about 1.1015 €. Compared with the investment for the PowerMac, an adequate effort for data security.
The UL4S works absolutely fine and stable in my Mac, e.g. sleep mode still works correct also. This is not a matter of course, I learned. Also you can turn on your tape drive during the Mac is running and just re-scan the SCSI bus with the ATTO utility, so it's there. Meanwhile I found a cheaper device from Ratoc Systems, which can connect a SCSI device via the FireWire interface, the FireWire(IEEE1394) to Ultra SCSI Converter FR1SX, however I haven't tested it. But this could mean, that you can do this also with a MacBook.
But best of this solution is the backup software from Archiware. I locked for a longer time until I found this. And it seems to be 'Made in Germany', too
It is very convenienced, clear structured, even a little bit Apple-like and its browser based user interface needs getting used to, but then you can work with it very solid and in an easy way. The program also does not take very much performance off your system. I worked with it now for about 7 months and I have a very good feeling now for the security of my data
The features, what the app has, are particulate too professional for private use, but I do not know what others expect. So you can do your backups on two ways. One is to backup your data, i.e. they will be copied onto tape, the other is to archive your data, i.e. then they will be moved.
You can also backup to disk drive (external ones too or to DVD...also with 1 licence however here you have to disable your tape drive and enable the other one you wonna use. This could annoy sometimes, but it works and this does not destroy your backup profiles! And when you want to restore e.g. photo files, there is a preview image for it, too.
Also you can backup other clients (my wife's Mac) via network in background automatically. And just for testing, a demo key for evaluation you also could request at them, a.s.o.
And finally, if I should ever have to switch back to Windows, I hope that I can exchange certainly my Apple licence into a Windows one and get back my data, because the app is running on several OS.
And even my problems on the beginning getting the program running , I got an outstanding support from that guys (also late at evening per mail), but it was my fault
So before I switched to Mac 2 years ago, until that time I was used to backup to tape. Now I've gone a way that all in all works fine and is a reliable solution doing tape backups again with Macs
as I like it.
Now you are on the right way, guys
As author of this thread I ask you not to start a discussion about external drive backup vs. tape backup. There are a lot of it in this forum already.
However I would like to invite everyone attaching his reports and questions here, who has experiences with tape backup methods on Macs or is interesting in doing this, too.
The reason for, why I stopped backing up onto external hard disk drives is, that I recognized that you need at least as big external drives as you use for internal ones. Why? If you do not have this, you'll reach very quickly the disk limit and won't be able to make incremental backups in a comfortable way as used any longer. Depending on what kind of data you work with, you make a couple of incremental backups and your disk will be full. Usually I have about 400 to 600 GB on my disks.
At that time you have to clean up your external disk and the fastest way is mostly to start making your backups from scratch, because most free backup applications that you are using privately do not support controlled deletion of files out of your backup sets. Or you buy a further external disk drive and spend money again.
Also the transfer rates mostly via USB or Firewire are not realy fast enough for big data volumes, what means that you need a couple of hours each time you run your backups, even if you clone your disk. Here I monitored that the transfer rate often decreases dramatically when working with a huge amount of data being processed at one time.
And other drawbacks are, that your external backup disk could be stolen wit your Mac - if you do not put it consequently down into the cellar, it could falls down, you could get a head crash or what else, so external drives are - in my optinion - no stable, secure or permant solution for your photos and movies, which are very important for you, aren't they?
So I locked for an affordable and secure solution among tape backup solutions, which lets me sleep well. At the beginning you have a little higher expense, however I think this is an investment over a longer period of time. So you could re-use it even if you change your Mac.
So I decided me to following equipment:
265 € ATTO Express UL4S PCI-X Ultra 320 SCSI-Controller (there is no other one beside, known to me)
150 € Used IBM LTO Ultrium1 SCSI Tape Drive bought via ebay
100 € 4 Tapes with 100 GB, until 200 GB compacted
ca. 500 € Archiware PresSTORE Backup, Licence for 1 tape drive and 1 client
Summa summarum about 1.1015 €. Compared with the investment for the PowerMac, an adequate effort for data security.
The UL4S works absolutely fine and stable in my Mac, e.g. sleep mode still works correct also. This is not a matter of course, I learned. Also you can turn on your tape drive during the Mac is running and just re-scan the SCSI bus with the ATTO utility, so it's there. Meanwhile I found a cheaper device from Ratoc Systems, which can connect a SCSI device via the FireWire interface, the FireWire(IEEE1394) to Ultra SCSI Converter FR1SX, however I haven't tested it. But this could mean, that you can do this also with a MacBook.
But best of this solution is the backup software from Archiware. I locked for a longer time until I found this. And it seems to be 'Made in Germany', too
It is very convenienced, clear structured, even a little bit Apple-like and its browser based user interface needs getting used to, but then you can work with it very solid and in an easy way. The program also does not take very much performance off your system. I worked with it now for about 7 months and I have a very good feeling now for the security of my data
The features, what the app has, are particulate too professional for private use, but I do not know what others expect. So you can do your backups on two ways. One is to backup your data, i.e. they will be copied onto tape, the other is to archive your data, i.e. then they will be moved.
You can also backup to disk drive (external ones too
or to DVD...also with 1 licence however here you have to disable your tape drive and enable the other one you wonna use. This could annoy sometimes, but it works and this does not destroy your backup profiles! And when you want to restore e.g. photo files, there is a preview image for it, too.Also you can backup other clients (my wife's Mac) via network in background automatically. And just for testing, a demo key for evaluation you also could request at them, a.s.o.
And finally, if I should ever have to switch back to Windows, I hope that I can exchange certainly my Apple licence into a Windows one and get back my data, because the app is running on several OS.
And even my problems on the beginning getting the program running , I got an outstanding support from that guys (also late at evening per mail), but it was my fault
So before I switched to Mac 2 years ago, until that time I was used to backup to tape. Now I've gone a way that all in all works fine and is a reliable solution doing tape backups again with Macs
as I like it.
Now you are on the right way, guys
