[linux-lvm] Backup costs (was: LVM reimplementationre)

[Benjamin Scott]

On Tue, 5 Feb 2002, James Hawtin wrote:
> I think the reason most people don't do backups is because, hard disk
> drives are really big and really cheap. Tape drives are really expensive,
> media is also expensive and frankly tapes are very small for the cost.

  Here are some prices from a recent Datacomm Warehouse catalog:

  Item            GB   Cost  $/GB
  --------------  ---  ----  ----
  IDE HDD         100   270  2.70
  AIT2             50    90  1.80
  SuperDLT        110   150  1.36
  LTO Ultrium     100   130  1.30
  DDS-4            20    24  1.20

  As you can see, hard disk is actually the most expensive media, not the
least.  This whole "hard disks are cheaper" thing is a myth propagated by
people who have never actually looked at the numbers.

> Effective backup can double the cost of a system and requires time to
> manage it.

  Sure it can.  Losing your data will generally cost even more.

> For the "home" market its just to much.

  The home user has maybe, what, 100 MB of data to protect, tops?  You can
fit that on a $2 CD-RW, for crying out loud.

> This why people don't have backups in my book.

  "Most people" don't have backups because they don't know any better, and
likely don't care.  They bought their Pee Cee at Wal-Mart, and the most
valuable thing on there is their collection of illegal music they downloaded
before Napster went bust.  For those who have legitimately valuable data
(e.g., financial data), they likely don't realize just how much it is going
to cost them when (note -- *WHEN*, not *IF*) they lose it.

  Sure, backups cost money.  You might spend $1500 on a data protection
scheme for a small office server.  Of course, consider how much it would
cost if they did not do that.  I know business that have *gone out of
business* when they lost their only copy of mission-critical data.

  $1500 vs bankruptcy.  Gee, tough call.

  Anyone who has ever bothered to work out the numbers knows that backups
are a bargain.  People who think otherwise are either ignorant or just plain
don't want to know the truth.

-- 
Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
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