The price for a four-drive LTO5 library zooms up to more than $200K. I found that the average price for a lower-end LTO3/4 robotic library with four drives is about $37K.
DISK AID VERSUS DRIVE DOCTOR MANUAL
To keep this an apples-to-apples comparison, we need to consider using tape library type drives versus individual tape drives, so there is no manual requirement of swapping tapes as with a disk-based library such as a virtual tape library (VTL). Performance requirements: Assuming 20 terabytes of production data and eight-hour backup window: (I know isn’t it strange that 20TB can be considered a small IT shop these days?) In order to keep it simple, I will focus only on the price and performance of the drives, so let’s eliminate the media requirements from the costs and just focus on the price/performance of the drives versus a disk-based solution. Let’s look at a small IT shop with 20TB of data to protect using common practices. Notice that the single node disk based VTL can provide 1024 virtual tape devices at a significant discount over buying the real thing.Ĭost Comparison of Traditional Tape Versus Single Node Disk-Based VTL Price/Performance To keep this exercise simple, I used an average for performance and price in the chart below. The results may also change based on the vendor you choose, as some vendors provide fairly inexpensive tape or disk libraries, while others require the proverbial arm and a leg. Disk-based solutions with dedupe are better as the performance and capacity requirements increase. What I found is pretty interesting.įrom a purely financial standpoint, tape tends to win for smaller IT shops where the performance requirements are lower than what can be achieved with six to 10 LTO tape drives. I then charted my findings on a simple graph based on price and performance. I performed some simple Web searches on prices and performance specs for tape and disk-based backup solutions. Instead of viewing the disk-versus-tape debate as a purely technical problem, I decided to look at it from a non-partisan price and performance point of view.
The problem is the CFO usually wins the argument, so it all comes down to cost. They need to assure the smooth operation, recovery and security of the applications and data that run the business, no matter what. For them, protecting the organization’s critical data assets is not just an insurance policy it’s their job. This view of data protection flies in the face of what IT operations managers deal with on a day-to-day basis. The debate over whether disk or tape is the better solution for backup has been going on for some time now, and it seems the answer you get typically depends on who is responding to the question.Īccording to many chief financial officers (CFOs), backup and disaster recovery (DR) are just like insurance policies for the business, so the least expensive method is the one they usually select.
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