[mythtv-users] Why did you pick MythTV VS the other PVRs?

[Brian Wood]

On Friday 28 August 2009 21:26:31 John Drescher wrote:
> > Except the only effective way to back up a TB raid system is to
> > another TB raid system.
>
> I still do that with tape at work (75 LTO2 tapes) as I do not consider
> RAID arrays as a backup medium and they certainly are not long time
> storage medium.
>
> At home even though I do own a tape drive I do not use it because at
> 33GB VXA the tapes are too small and cost too much to use anymore.

Most home users, and probably most Myth users, do not use tape, due mostly to 
cost.

The VXA 320s have fairly good capacity, but blank media is somewhat costly. 
The larger-capacity drives are very expensive.

Most people do not even have the SCSI interface most tape drives require.

Backing up to other hard drive(s) is probably the most economical method, 
though maybe not the most reliable.

Yes, it is costly to back up TBs of storage, but the cost of a backup solution 
should be factored in to the cost of any storage array. You wouldn't purchase 
an automobile without considering the cost of insurance, I hope.

But in Myth's case it's only TV, there's not much that couldn't be replaced. 
Any truly irreplaceable video can be archived to DVD, anything else can be 
obtained somewhere else if necessary. 

RAID1 doubles your drive cost, obviously, but is not really a "backup", it can 
still be clobbered by a runaway filesystem or program run amok, or a 
fatfingered sysadmin. It may prevent data loss from a drive failure, but not 
from other causes.

I'm not trying to discourage RAID, it protects against some types of problems, 
and can even improve drive system performance, but it's just not the best way 
to protect important data. It is part of a good "defense in depth" system, 
but only a part.

What do others here use as a backup method?

-- 
Brian Wood
beww at beww.org