Re: Buy 2nd server? Advice needed

From: Steve Foster [SBS MVP] (steve.foster_at_picamar.co.uk)
Date: 06/28/04 

Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2004 23:47:19 -0700

Mark Mancini wrote:

> Again, it depends how important your data is. What is expensive? Is
> a week of employee downtime expensive? I only sell U320 RAID5 drives
> b/c the longevity and performance outweigh the alternative. My
> servers run 4-5 years w/out much upgrading. $300 now may be $700
> later. Look at COST not PRICE, there is a DIFFERENCE. Backup should
> be to tape, NOT hard drive....that is the most ludicrious and
> assinine thing. If you EVER go to court and face a lawyer and tell
> him you are backing up to hard drive while the rest of world does it
> to tape you will not only be laughed off the stand but lose your
> house. I've see it and I would never do it but I also base my
> decisions on COST, no PRICE.

One of my customers is replacing their server with a new one. It will
have 300Gb of disk space. The server cost is around 3k GBP
(~US$5700-5800). A tape drive capable of backing that up costs almost
as much as the server itself (and the tapes themselves are ludicrously
expensive). Please explain how to justify such a large capital
investment in a backup device.

We are going to give external hard drives a try, and see if they suit
the client better. When I can get a 300Gb external drive for GBP 200,
it's a no-brainer (trying them out that is)... That would buy (in the
UK) just 3 tapes capable of holding that amount of data! 

-- 
Steve Foster [SBS MVP]
---------------------------------------
MVPs do not work for Microsoft. Please reply only to the newsgroups.

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