Thought Cassettes were useless? Apparently not

Lemony Vengeance

Lemony Vengeance

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have you ever had to restore items from Tape on a deadline? GOOD FREAKING LUCK. Tape backup/restore is part of the reason I now work for a Cloud backup software company.. it's so inconvenient and sloow. Just imagine how freaking slow it would be to sift through hundreds of TERABYTES of data for that folder you need.

yeesh. NOTHANKYOU.JPG
 
Takumaji

Takumaji

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Industry-grade tape drives and tapes are of high quality and usually have very quick data access rates, it's the consumer-grade/cheap stuff that sucks like hell, like DAT for example. What's more, storing backups on tape should be just one element of your backup strategy. Tape backups are best used for complete restore, there are better solutions for short-time backups or single restore actions, like clouds, distributed HD cabinet stacks or simply backing up stuff to external HDs or even USB sticks. Most admins/IT depts. of larger companies with lotsa data to backup combine short-time and long-time strategies to prevent data loss.

Typical backup strategies cover three major aspects: Desaster recovery (which includes the OS), full and single data restore. Desaster recovery is used to restore a complete OS/system after a major hardware failure and should be implemented so that it's possible to also recover the OS data to completely new hardware. Full and single data restore refers to normal, non-OS data like word documents, pictures and stuff like that. If you're a company admin, it may also be required to backup databases or virtual servers which requires different strategies (or proper software), you can't just create copies of database files and simply restore them one by one, this may work with early version of MySQL but do it with Oracle and it will break. A good backup software comes with drivers for these special cases that enable it to suspend a running db and make a time-based snapshot of the data which can be restored easily. Same goes for virtual servers.

Of course a tape-based system may not be the #1 choice for private data backup, here, creating complete images of your system(s) (for ex. with Acronis) and backing up data that changes a lot to a cloud, external HDs or DVDs is more convenient and cheaper.
 
S

SNKorSWM

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The kicker is how long it takes for the tape recorder to read or write onto that cassette. Now if I can only find the exact micron where the dick pics are stored on. XD
 
xsq

xsq

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I never stopped making audio mixtapes since I was like 14... don't have as much time to, but it's OK since less of my friends have tapedecks/walkmans. It's a shame the golden days of tapes won't come back... quality is way better than most mp3s people listen to nowadays. And you can't easily pick them up locally, have to order them online to get a decent price.

Data on tape for endconsumers was before my time entirely though.
 
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Tarma

Tarma

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DAT for the win!!

... Laserdisc to make a comeback in 2015???
 
OrochiEddie

OrochiEddie

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For the lovers of physical mediums. The successor to blu-ray is coming too.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26528507

Sony and Panasonic have named the next-generation storage discs that will be the successor to Blu-Ray.

They revealed it will be called the Archival Disc. It will eventually hold 1TB of data, the equivalent of 250 DVD films.

300GB versions of the discs will be launched in 2015.

They will be aimed at big companies that need to store vast amounts of data.

The firms signed an agreement to work on the next-generation storage medium last summer.

The first iteration will be a double-sided disc with three layers of data per side with 300GB capacity, it revealed.

Current dual-layer Blu-ray discs can store up to 50GB of data.

Over time the firms will roll out 500GB and 1TB versions of the disk, a joint statement from the firms said.

Holographic systems
In an era of digital and cloud storage, some have questioned the point of such discs but actually such systems are crucial, thinks Gartner analyst Paul O'Donovan.

"If you want to hand on your photos to your grandchildren we are going to need somewhere to store it all," he said.

"Cloud servers have to store massive amounts of data and have to be able to hold on to it for a long time."

Panasonic and Sony were also keen to talk up the benefits of physical discs.

"Optical discs have excellent properties to protect themselves against the environment, such as dust-resistance and water-resistance, and can also withstand changes in temperature and humidity when stored," the firms said in a statement.

Facebook has begun installation of 10,000 Blu-ray discs in a prototype storage cabinet as back-ups for users' photos and videos.

Such a system will reduce its costs by 50% and use 80% less energy compared to traditional storage, the firm said.

Fujifilm is developing a 1TB optical disc that uses two-photon absorption technology, for release in 2015.

"Eventually we will have molecular, holographic systems which will store data in three dimensions," said Mr O'Donovan.
Click to expand...
 
El Maricon Loco

El Maricon Loco

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ki_atsushi said:
Jesus, by the end of the year we'll already have 4k blu ray players... how much more resolution will we need!?

Archival discs will be good for backups, but do we really need to replace the blu ray for video content?
Click to expand...

You gotta keep pushing Sex Lord, one facet of it has to be a long-term revenue stream. There are far too many fuckers enjoying giant cheap LCD's and Plasmas. The sooner we can get another format cooking, the sooner people will feel it's time to dump the inferior resolutions.
 
norton9478

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What was the 80's Kids movie where a guy puts his brain on an 8-Track and can't find it?

Or maybe it wasn't his brain, but some type of other sensitive information (and no don't say Cloak and Dagger/agent-x).
 
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Mac91

Mac91

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norton9478 said:
What was the 80's Kids movie where a guy puts his brain on an 8-Track and can't find it?

Or maybe it wasn't his brain, but some type of other sensitive information (and no don't say Cloak and Dagger/agent-x).
Click to expand...

Karate Kid?
 
K

ki_atsushi

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El Maricon Loco said:
You gotta keep pushing Sex Lord, one facet of it has to be a long-term revenue stream. There are far too many fuckers enjoying giant cheap LCD's and Plasmas. The sooner we can get another format cooking, the sooner people will feel it's time to dump the inferior resolutions.
Click to expand...

The shitty part is that CRT's were basically the same since day 1, and it was good enough for what... 60 years? Now that LCD's took over nothing is enough.

They should focus on eliminating lag and better black levels before they start pursuing more resolution. Greedy fuckers.
 
BeefJerky

BeefJerky

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ki_atsushi said:
The shitty part is that CRT's were basically the same since day 1, and it was good enough for what... 60 years? Now that LCD's took over nothing is enough.

They should focus on eliminating lag and better black levels before they start pursuing more resolution. Greedy fuckers.
Click to expand...

And what's up with those 240Hz screens? That shit weirds me out, makes everything look ridiculous.
 
NeoGeoNinja

NeoGeoNinja

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This thread took me back to the mid-90's...

IOMEGA_Jaz%201_585.jpg


...I used to use these back in the mid-to-late 90's in 1 & 2GB capacities when Floppy Disks were still the norm. CD-R write speeds weren't quite all that and DVD-R tech was not quite there yet.

Oh... they were unreliable as fuck and were well renowned for their unpredictable and desperately unwanted "Click of Death".

A combination of Jaz and shitty Quark 3 used to drive me up the fucking wall!
 
RabbitTroop

RabbitTroop

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GohanX said:
Tape backup is still used all the time for commercial purposes, it never really went away.
Click to expand...

Yep. Worst thing is pulling an archive from Iron Mountain, though, and realizing we don't have a device that reads the tape's format anymore. I was actually considering salvaging one of my company's IT hand-me-downs recently, too, as I keep looking for more robust backup storage for the home office, but honestly the tape backup systems are old, and the tapes that fall out of favor and that technology leaves behind, shoot up in price like crazy. It's cheaper to buy 256GB flash drives and just have multiple copies of everything I don't trust on the NAS... Though, I just had a catastrophic hard drive failure on a machine here recently and was lucky enough not to lose a thing. I guess I'm learning... What the hell are we even talking about... I'm rambling on like an old man... Why don't I just edit this out... ... ... Where am I?
 
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