Comment The problem is also potentially the solution (Score 2, Interesting) 690
The real problem here is the absolutely insane rate of hard drive size increases. Hard drive capacity has been increasing at greater than 100% per year since IBM's GMR heads came out. You can now buy a 70TB(yes, terabyte) emc drive array (384 * 180GB seagates)! Maxtor is coming out with a 160GB! ATA drive (once they finish addressing the 28 bit sector address limit). I agree, this poses the issue of "do we really need all of this space?", but data needs will always scale.
Therefore, since the fault of the problem lies with hard drives hugely outpacing every other form of recording medium in rate of capacity increase, the only reasonable solution will soon be (if it isn't already) to use hard drives as the backup medium. Yes, I know, hard drives combine the media with the mechanism and that is normally a big no-no, but in this case I think the monetary facts must be faced. In order to get around the media/mechanism issue as well as the off-site storage issue while not emptying our wallets, I think multi-site dual-hard drive-backup is in order.
At any given site, one would use large ATA drives in the backup server (most likely in an external hotswap cage for the corporates) in place of a tape library/cdr/etc. But, in this case, we should make two copies (use two drives!) to hopefully get around the combined media/mechanism issue. Trust me, the cost of doubling up will be far less than an equivalent media based solution. Off-site fire-proof backup companies could start taking hard drives (being considerably more careful than with tapes, of course). If you want, you could encrypt whatever was on the drive. This scheme scales from the smallest home needs(keep the drives in the safety deposit box) to the largest corporates, and makes the most sense monetarily.
Therefore, since the fault of the problem lies with hard drives hugely outpacing every other form of recording medium in rate of capacity increase, the only reasonable solution will soon be (if it isn't already) to use hard drives as the backup medium. Yes, I know, hard drives combine the media with the mechanism and that is normally a big no-no, but in this case I think the monetary facts must be faced. In order to get around the media/mechanism issue as well as the off-site storage issue while not emptying our wallets, I think multi-site dual-hard drive-backup is in order.
At any given site, one would use large ATA drives in the backup server (most likely in an external hotswap cage for the corporates) in place of a tape library/cdr/etc. But, in this case, we should make two copies (use two drives!) to hopefully get around the combined media/mechanism issue. Trust me, the cost of doubling up will be far less than an equivalent media based solution. Off-site fire-proof backup companies could start taking hard drives (being considerably more careful than with tapes, of course). If you want, you could encrypt whatever was on the drive. This scheme scales from the smallest home needs(keep the drives in the safety deposit box) to the largest corporates, and makes the most sense monetarily.
