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| DAS backup solutions are the most straightforward data protection solutions, but also provide the least overall storage capacity due to the physical limits of tapes and disks and the one-to-one correspondence between device and backup . If your business meets one or more of these criteria, you may benefit from a DAS solution: |
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Does not need to support online business-critical operations |
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Offers daily or weekly backup |
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Maintains less than a handful of networked servers (less than 5, preferably less than 3). |
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Supports a single operating system |
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Wants plug-and-play capability |
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Sensitive to acquisition costs |
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DAS technologies |
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| DAS backup solutions offer cost-effective data protection for small single or multi-server environments using standalone tape drives and small auto-loaders for additional capacity. If you have large enough data requirements, you can use tape libraries to extend storage capacity even farther. A high-capacity tape technology currently leading the way is LTO (Linear Tape-Open) which offers capacities of up to 1.6 TB per cartridge. With up to 8 cartridges in an auto-loader, total capacity can reach 12.8 TB per device. LTO media is readily available, durable, and cost effective: |
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| While LTO may be a cost-effective DAS solution leading the way for new tape-storage applications, the DAT drive has a huge installed base of over 6 million drives and hundreds of millions of cartridges. Many organizations will continue to have this time-tested standard in place for years to come as the technology has proven itself as an inexpensive and reliable choice. |
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| In a typical DAS implementation, the tape drive connects directly to the server or workstation whose data you want to protect. The backup management software also resides on the server to simplify the setup. Given the size of today's disk drives and tape cartridge capacities, even small businesses should choose an autoloader or tape library to automate the backup process. Autoloaders and libraries bring significant resource savings and reliability improvements: |
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Manage backups from a single management console |
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Minimize human errors associated with media handling, management |
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Maintain all of your media in a single device |
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Simplify the entire backup process |
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Considerations |
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| As you consider DAS as a solution for your business, keep the following in mind: |
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Because tape backup solutions are typically used to back up data less frequently (daily or even weekly), they are less suitable for businesses that need to restore critical data from a point of loss. |
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Tape backup solutions can be slower than other options when it comes to backing up or data restore, so if you have a significant amount of data to back up, you may require a large backup window or may have to plan to devote some of your network traffic to backup tasks during standard working hours. |
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An HP DAS solution |
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| An HP DAS solution involves a direct-attached autoloader such as HP StorageWorks Tape Autoloaders. Once backup needs scale past the need for DAS, a switch to tape libraries such as the business-class HP StorageWorks MSL-series of Tape Libraries begins to make sense |
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| HP StorageWorks |
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Autoloaders |
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Tape libraries |
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1/8 Autoloaders |
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MSL tape libraries |
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| HP workstations and servers |
HP Workstations
HP ProLiant servers
HP Integrity servers |
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