this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
39 points (97.6% liked)

Selfhosted

61578 readers
390 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

Detailed Rules Post

  1. Be civil.

  2. No spam.

  3. Posts are to be related to self-hosting.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or readme if you're providing a link.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title.

  6. No trolling.

  7. Promotion posts require active participation, with an account that is at least 30 days old. F/LOSS without a paywall has exceptions, with requirements. See the rules link for details. Tags [CBH] or [AIP] are required, see the links in Rule 8 for details.

  8. AI-related discussions and AI-involved promotional posts have additional requirements for tagging, as noted in Rule 7 and the AI & Promotional Post Expanded Rules post, and find example disclosures here.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
ruud@lemmy.world
Loki@lemmy.world
CannaVet@lemmy.world
devve@lemmy.world
ayyy@sh.itjust.works
curbstickle@anarchist.nexus
curbstickle_lw@lemmy.world
39
Is there any tape media backup system that works through USB? (lemmy.world)
submitted 5 hours ago by iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
15 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

So...I was wondering. Is there any backup tape system that would be advisable to use for backing up some TBs? I guess I need it to be USB, as the server is a micro PC, one of those tiny ones you can hang from behind a monitor. It's an HP ProDesk.

Thanks!

top 15 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 2 points 27 minutes ago* (last edited 26 minutes ago)

Its fun to think of alternate storage media. The other day I calculated that with the idiotic pricing now, HDDs are only slightly cheaper than DVD storage. And DVDs last longer and dont crash randomly, especially if you get long storage dvds.

Couple years ago, I got three DOA WD red nas HDDs. Dead. And 2 DOA Samsung ssds. I have zero trust for any drive now. No doubt theyre all cost cutting and going to shit. I have 20 year old drives that still work fine.

Ive never personally experienced disc rot even on 20 year old discs, but I heard people have. But yeah DVDs would obviously be a goofy mass backup solution.

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 10 points 1 hour ago

LTO tapes are 18TB today, raw - 48TB compressed.

How much data you got?

At that size I can probably build 2 Proxmox boxes with drives and compete very well on the costs.

A single 14TB disk is about $270 today - that's in the same realm as a tape.

But tape also requires a drive, and that gets pricey fast.

[–] axum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Just use a spinning rust drive for periodic backup.

Nothing you have is worth the cost of a LTO setup.

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 6 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (2 children)

This is the answer.

I haven't done the math, but even SMB's don't use tape today.

They may do a local replica and then some kind of local-hardware-based cloud backup solution, because cost and capability.

[–] bluGill@fedia.io 3 points 1 hour ago

Large companies still use tape for their large data sets. Tape has some useful advantages that make it worth it in very specific situations.

The first is when you have a lot of data - if you have several hundred of even thousands tapes (likely including duplicates!) then the quantity of data you have backed up is large enough the tapes are the cheapest.

The second - as hinted above - is duplicates. If you don't want the data lost a tape is a good answer to have several copies. While a disk might be cheaper, they are fragile and computers are not designed to swap disks that often. Even USB which is designed for swapping isn't that good: the connector will physically wear out a lot faster than you would expect making the costs much higher to manage this. Plus the labor to plug/unplug a lot of drives will get you.

Third, some tapes come in a write once form. If you have data that (often for legal reasons) you need to store such that it cannot be modified later then tape is often you best answer to ensure the data really wasn't changed. (either by an executive hiding their tracks, or an attacker trying to put ransomware on you).

That said, for most reading this, a few disks in a NAS is better than about 98% of people have and if you have snapshots on the NAS probably good enough for everything (your only risk is fire or theft of the NAS - if you cannot live with this get a second NAS elsewhere, or a cloud backup), similar cost, and has enough other useful features that you want it anyway.

[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Does make you wonder who does use tape? Id assume big businesses just use cloud, so who is left that uses tape?

[–] EarMaster@lemmy.world 2 points 49 minutes ago

Depending on what cloud tier you are using they might use tape then (e.g. IBM Cloud Object Storage Deep Archive).

[–] bluGill@fedia.io 2 points 1 hour ago

Do you need tape? Do you really need that much data? Archival grade DVDs can store a few GB (an order of magnitude less than the TBs you asked for!), and probably easier to find/source.

[–] bluGill@fedia.io 1 points 1 hour ago

Yes, but not as an out of the box solution. Tape drives use standard sizes, and standard interfaces (often serial attached SCSI). You can buy a tape drive and a USB encloser that lets you put your own drive in it and the tape drive will work. You need to make sure the USB encloser provides enough power, is big enough, and has the correct interface, but it will "just work" if you select the right parts and plug them in. Do make sure you read the spec - some cheaper enclosers may not support USB3 data rates which you tape drive may need to work well.

The USB designers made the decision back in the day that they would not design a protocol for CDrom (then important), tape, or other such things. Instead they designed a "here is how to transmit SCSI over USB", which makes it cheap to design USB to SCSI adapters and that is what has been done.

[–] i_am_not_a_robot@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 2 hours ago

Can you just connect a regular drive using a USB SATA adapter or something?

[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 25 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

https://www.unitex.co.jp/en/products/hardware/lto/lto-tapedrive/

Found from a google, no experience with it.

Tape is not a nice medium for the self-hoster, the drives are expensive, the tapes need to be carefully stored securely (temperature and humidity controled). Its a lot of hassle. That said, if you find something good, I'm interested as well, so report back.

[–] iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

Where I live I have an interesting second hand market. I might be able to find something older like LTO5 at reasonable prices. I'm not sure however about the SAS to USB adapter...

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 7 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

A bit pricy for home use with 8-10k bucks...

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 8 points 2 hours ago

No shit. I still have a 5090 still stuck in my throat. $8k for a tape drive, hell, I could have got two 5090s.

[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 2 points 1 hour ago

I didn't look tbh, I just assumed it would be 1-2k. 8-10 is crazy.

Does kinda backup my point though :/