A simple and affordable NAS to tape backup solution

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R.Wagner
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A simple and affordable NAS to tape backup solution

Post by R.Wagner »

Correct me please if I'm wrong but at the moment the only backup solution for Qnap to LTO-tape is Archiware P5. After testing it for quite a while I think this is not what most Qnap users need. As an enterprise grade solution it is way too complicated and is way too expensive. You have to pay over £1000 to get started and probably wouldn't use more than 5% of it's functionality while having to wade through tons of menus to get it working the way you want.

Researching the market I found two other solutions that are maybe more appropriate for Qnap users:

It's Hedge Canister as the easiest to use and most affordable.
And maybe Yoyotta as a complete solution for media centric applications.

Unfortunately both solutions are Mac only but maybe Qnap is big enough as a corporation that they would port their applications to our platform.

Are there any free open source solutions?

Any additional ideas for a swift backup from Qnap to LTO-tape without braking the bank?
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dolbyman
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Re: A simple and affordable NAS to tape backup solution

Post by dolbyman »

QNAPs are simple file storage...you can always do a pull backup.

So just pull a backup to whatever storage you like, on whatever system you like (WIN/Mac/Linux)
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Moogle Stiltzkin
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Re: A simple and affordable NAS to tape backup solution

Post by Moogle Stiltzkin »

to my understanding, the initial investment into lto tape machine is costly. but once you get through that hurdle, the costs of the lto tapes themselves for the capacity sizes are cheaper than hdds, not to mention quite durable for archival purposes.

afaik qnap had 1 nas where they integrated a lto tape slot into the qnap nas. they recommended to use the archiware p5 software, though not sure if you are forced to use that, or if it was possible to use a free open source alternative if it exists :'

here are some threads you may be interested in

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/co ... e_changer/

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/co ... y_why_not/

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/co ... w_in_2021/

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/co ... _drive_in/



some comments on the software
micah01101101
·
7 mo. ago
16TB

I managed to pick up an lto 5 drive for about $50 earlier this year. I got a fibre channel card for it for about $15 and I got some tapes for about $10 each. The cost wasn’t too bad but what’s really gotten me is the software side. Most of the software is designed for large businesses and prices accordingly.


this was a video back in 2018, not quite sure how it panned out, but sounds like QNAP did try to do what you said by integrating LTO into their nas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vJCFgHUNQQ


and this is a video about p5 archiware for use with qnap and how that works
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u7XfHt_kUc



i'm all for lower prices, but not sure how likely that is going to be for lto (you can check datahoarders reddit, there is a lot of up to date info on that over there). last i checked LTO price becomes more favorable if you are trying to backup 40+ tb worth of data, then the initial investment into lto might be worth the cost if the data is that important and your trying to backup huge amounts of data.



open source lto software? how to get lto drive cheap? :'
Malvineous
edited 3 mo. ago

Only the latest drives are crazy expensive. If you're willing to stick with 10 year old models (which are still quite good by consumer standards - over a terabyte per tape, 140 MB/sec read/write speeds) then you can get them for the same prices as mid-range hard disks.

Tape libraries are also one of those things that seem expensive, but often you can get them really cheap or free, if you have a little patience. I have six tape libraries and I never spent more on each one than what I would've spent on a cheap brand new hard drive.

The trick is to learn how they work, and get "broken" ones and fix them. Usually they are only "broken" because they don't have a tape drive, but the robot part still works fine. Get a compatible drive for a few bucks and off you go. Be willing to pick them up in person as people often don't want the hassle of shipping them. Set up eBay alerts/RSS feeds so you get notified when listings come up so you don't have to remember to keep checking.

As others have said, you can get perfectly usable second hand tape drives for next to nothing, so there is no incentive to create a DIY one. The closest DIY ones I have seen is when people figured out how to store data on VHS tapes and MiniDV/Digital8 video cameras. But none of those had anything to do with designing tape transports, they were just repurposing existing tape mechanisms for data storage.

Also as far as open source goes, the O in LTO is for "open", and the idea behind it was to allow multiple manufacturers to all focus on a single format instead of competing against each other with their own tapes - because again, it cost them so much in time and money to develop a tape drive, it was better for these massive companies to pool their resources and stick to one tape format. I haven't actually tried to obtain the LTO specs so I'm not sure how open it really is, but in theory you can get hold of them without too much hassle.

If you still think you'd like to start your own DIY project, before you get too far, grab an old LTO-1 drive. These are so old (only 100 GB per tape) that they just don't sell on eBay so you can get them practically for free. Take it apart and figure out how it works. Run it with the top off and you'll realise very quickly that it's one of the most complex DIY projects you could tackle.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/co ... e_library/
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kajain
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Re: A simple and affordable NAS to tape backup solution

Post by kajain »

As in 2023 there is no other way to backup from QNAP to an LTO tape, other than Archiware P5 as you wrote correctly. No Passthrough to VM is possible either so you can't use any other software. In all these years, we only had one client use this solution, everybody else has a server with LTO drive so the data is copied to server and then to QNAP, not very efficient.

Now, LTO tape drives are expensive, but tapes are cheaper (in the range of US$ 4,000 with LTO-7 6TB Native around Us$ 45).

We have realized that if you have less than 60TB backup, its cheaper to buy an RDX solution. All you need is an RDX dock ( retails around US$ 220) and use these RDX cartridges ( 2TB retail $240). They are just hard drives made to look like tapes. Dead simple - Connects with USB, Natively supported ( just like an external hard drive), excellent portability because you don't need any other software on the other end.

If you have more than 60TB to backup to tapes , offcourse LTOs is the only way today
davfox
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Re: A simple and affordable NAS to tape backup solution

Post by davfox »

Hi there, Archiware here, just wanted to add, to anyone reading this Thread, that Archiware P5 remains the only backup/archive solution that can read/write to LTO (via SAS) and run direct on a QNAP NAS. The product does scale up to handle large installation with big tape libraries, but is really quite simple to create a simple archive workflow.

This short video runs through all the steps required to get this working, just to illustrate that it's not so difficult.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8ArRIZcq_M

David
avp2501
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Re: A simple and affordable NAS to tape backup solution

Post by avp2501 »

This is something that I desperately need to setup myself. Although the tape drives are very expensive, by the time you've forked out for a backup NAS and the appropriate drives it would have been cheaper to go with the tape solution. Of course this is just the hardware costs and not any additional software costs which are usually subscription based models since they think only businesses use these devices.

I haven't looked at Archiware P5 however unless the software is free or a one off reasonable cost, I have no interest in it.

Yes it's true that the LTO hardware design is open as part of a joint effort between multiple companies in the past. However I think people are interested in a free open source software solution to running the LTO hardware. If there is something available then it might be possible to run this software in a container. I don't know how possible this is but I imagine all you need is to hook up a raspberry pi to the LTO and you've got your link with the software, might not be performant but it would certainly be affordable.
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