Tape Copy White Paper
In today’s computing environment, businesses place their faith entirely on computers to perform the mission critical
functions that are a necessity for a company’s survival. The use of computers in business is essential for maintaining a
competitive edge within any marketplace. Smaller companies have begun to realize the benefits of computers for
bookkeeping, customer databases, word processing, e-mail, event scheduling, competitive research and e-commerce. The
need to have a backup copy of this data becomes increasingly important since research has shown that more than 80% of
the businesses suffering from catastrophic data loss have gone out of business within 12 months. Such statistics prove that
it is no longer recommended but mandatory for businesses of all sizes to have a proper backup and archival storage
procedure in place.
BACKING UP YOUR BACKUP
Running a backup is something that should be done daily, but very few businesses do it. Concrete backup schemes involve
tape rotations, off-site media storage and a long-term plan for future data recovery. To make future planning complete,
backup practices should be extended to include the duplication of media and refreshing of media where shelf life is nearing
expiration. Essentially meaning a backup of the backup.
Case Study #1:
A backup administrator arrives early to the office and performs the usual daily tape rotation. Then, walks into the
manager’s office and hands in the 30 tapes. The manager immediately leaves to store the last night’s backup tapes in an
off-site location. No sooner does the manager return to the office, the manager is informed that the tapes that were taken
off-site need to be brought back. The reason: someone “lost” a very important file by accidentally overwriting it. The
Manager’s time is lost and the costs associated to this incident are high. Unless of course a duplicate copy was on hand, but
unfortunately there was not. Needless to say, the manager had to cancel an important conference call with a potential client
to retrieve the tapes and bring them back.
You are correct
in thinking that this does not happen daily. It is also true that many companies
don’t practice immediate off-site storage of their backups, but we do, and
it has happened.
MIGRATE YOUR OLD MEDIA TO YOUR NEW TAPE DRIVE
Case Study #2:
A backup administrator has just been informed that the company network is about to grow. Instead of 2 servers, they now
need to add three more servers to the network. With the added servers, the administrator has requested an upgrade to their
tape drive (as the data capacity of the 5 servers will exceed the capacity of a single tape cartridge.)
The backup administrator had been using a single DAT tape drive and not surprisingly prefers not to come in at midnight to
switch tapes every night. Realizing that the best solution is to automate the tape rotation, he makes his recommendation to
his manager to purchase a SCSI tape autoloader. There are so many on the market, which one?
After calculating the amount of storage capacity they need now, and even several years from now, the backup administrator
makes a suggestion to purchase an AIT autoloader. However, all of his 4mm DAT tapes are not useable with the new
autoloader that has been selected.
Readability of the data from the 4mm tapes is crucial to their company.
Solution: TapeCopy to the rescue!
It’s a Fact!
TAPE LIFE IS NOT ETERNAL
Did you know that the official shelf life of a typical Sony 8mm tape cartridge is 4 years or 2,000 uses?
SCENARIOS
(Computer used: Pentium 333; 128MB RAM; Windows NT 4 Server; Adaptec 2940uw)
A daily backup of the server to a 4mm DAT (120meter tapes) = 4GB of data backed up daily
Each tape is 4GB (native capacity)
In effect is a 1 month tape rotation = approximately 360 tapes a year
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Total # of tapes a year
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360
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Total # of GB a day
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4
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Total # of GB a year
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1440GB
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Time vested (Backup to 4mm):
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720 hours
Backup of 4GB of data to a 4mm-tape drive with NovaNet 8 takes 2
hours.
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Time vested (System Administrator):
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+?
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Total Time
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720+ Hours
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The system administrator decides to upgrade the 4mm-tape drive to a DLT autoloader while maintaining the tape media.
This is technically impossible, because the DLT autoloader cannot use 4mm tapes.
Two current solutions exist:
In the first solution, the system administrator is facing a 4-step process.
Step 1: Install the 4mm-tape drive on a temporary server.
Step 2: Restore a tape to the server’s hard drive
Step 3: Perform a backup of the data to the new DLT loader.
Step 4: Remove the restored data off of the server’s hard drive.
Repeat steps 1 through 4 until all the tape data has been migrated to the new tape format.
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Total # of tapes to migrate
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360
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Total # of GB per tape
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4
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Time vested (Restore to 4mm):
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720 hours
Restore of 4GB of data from a 4mm-tape drive with NovaNet 8 takes 2 hours.
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Time vested (Backup to DLT):
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120 hours
Backup of 4GB of data to a DLT-tape drive with NovaNet 8 takes 20 minutes.
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Time vested (System Administrator):
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+?
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Total Time
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840+ Hours
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In the second solution, the system administrator is facing a 2-step process.
Step 1: Use TapeCopy.
Step 2: Smile wide.
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Total # of tapes to migrate
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360
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Total # of GB per tape
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4
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Time vested (Using TapeCopy):
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720 hours
Copying 4GB of data from a 4mm-tape drive to a DLT-tape with TapeCopy
takes 2 hours.
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Time vested (System Administrator):
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+?
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Total Time
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720+ Hours*
* = While this is still a considerable length of time, note that the copy is being
performed directly from the 4mm-tape to the DLT-tape without occupying
any hard drive space and can be run in the background.
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TapeCopy puts the ability of media migration in the hands of the user. TapeCopy will allow you to perform an image copy
from one tape to another tape. Whether you are using the same media format or you wish to go from one format to another,
tape copy can do the job.
WHAT TAPECOPY CAN DO
TapeCopy is a program that allows you to:
- Duplicate tapes for any purpose, such as:
- off site storage
- archiving
- sending copies to others
- Tape Format Migration
- Image copies from one tape medium to another.
- 9Track<=>3480/3490<=>1/2"<=>1/4"<=>Travan<=>4mm(DAT)<=>8mm<=>AIT<=>DLT<=>LTO<=>SDLT<=>ADR<=>VXA<=>??.
- Copy from one drive to another.
- Copy from one drive to many drives simultaneously.
- Copy a tape using a single drive.
- Browse the contents of the tape directly, without having to copy the data to your hard drive.
TapeCopy gives you the following benefits:
- Migrate your existing data from older tapes to new tapes.
- Migrate your existing data from tapes of small capacity to tapes of larger capacities.
- View tape blocks and header information of tape datasets without loading data to disk.
- Many tape utilities are included - Erase, Format, Partition, Retension, Rewind, Test, Write Tape Mark, Write
Label.
- With a single tape drive, create copies of a tape without having to reread the input tape for each copy.
- Extend the life of your tape data.
- From a single tape drive, create multiple output tapes unattended using an autoloader/library.
- With an autoloader/ tape library read the input tape and copy it to multiple output tapes in the same loader/library.
- Command line support (convenient for automated processes).
- Easy graphical user interface (2 mouse clicks and the process starts!).
- Create a duplicate copy of ANY TAPE with any TAPE FORMAT to an alternate tape type or device type.
- Simultaneously copy from one source to one or many destinations.
- Make a copy of a tape to take off site; allows the user not to have to run a 10-hour backup two times in a row.
The Tape Copy application enables the user to do simple tape copies. It does not have to deal with tape labels or the actual
data but it can if you like. What the program does is perform an exact bit for bit copy of a tape. The output can be any
SCSI/EIDE tape device on the same computer. It even enables the user to make a copy of a tape when they only have one
physical tape unit.
PRODUCT ROADMAP
Future versions of TapeCopy are planned with the following features:
- Verify Option
- Advanced Autoloader / Library Support
- Emailing of logs
- Ability to support tape copies across a network
- Additional language support (French, Italian, German, Spanish, Chinese (Simple), Japanese)
- Add a wizard to TapeCopy
If you have other features or suggestions that you would like to see implemented, please let us know.
SUMMARY
With today’s vastly different tape formats and the accessibility of various drives in the market, you can easily migrate from
any tape format to any other tape format with the use of TapeCopy.
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