Hey folks, being the family IT man I’ve held onto all of my families photos/videos over the last 20 years

I’ve been pretty careless with the backups and I know if I don’t do anything it’s only a matter of time before I lose them

Although I’ve never used them, tape drives seem to be the best so I thought I’d ask here if anyone uses them for their homelab?

It might be overkill for a few GB of photos but I’d also use the tape drives for data hoarding purposes so it’s a win win in my book

  • shellington@lemmings.worldEnglish
    3·
    2 months ago

    I have around 65TB backed up on LTO5 tapes. Found them very reliable when needed for a restore and great for an off-site backup.

    However I would say it is overkill for anything under 20TB.

    • markovs_gun@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      How much did this system cost? I have an idea for a product and one of the key parts of it is having a huge amount of local storage. I would need like 10x what you have though.

      • cass80@programming.devEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        Don’t buy lto5. Lto6 is the sweet spot right now.

        I can buy lto6 drives on ebay for 250ish. Tapes are like 15-25 bucks each.

    • pineapple@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      How have I never heard of tape drives for backup before? They seam like the ultimate medium for archival storage. Super cheap although very slow, sounds like a good compromise to me.