This article over at ZDNet asks are tape backup systems obsolete. its an interesting question, because i was thinking about this last month. I have quite a lot of data i want backed up (the last post said it totaled about 35+Gb, but at this stage its closer to 40-45Gb, maybe even 50Gb).

here is the list of stuff i want backed up, in order of how important:

Photos: High Importance: 22Gb and growing all the time. Since i shoot RAW, each image weighs in at 8Mb.

Websites/SQL DBs. High Importance, but a lot less of it. currently, DBs, source code, html, images, etc, weigh in at a little less then 1Gb.

Source Code: High Importance:  any code i have written for different things (websites, applications, utils, etc) again as important as above.

Email: Important: any email that has been sent to me in the last year, maybe a little longer. all stored in my Exchange server. Currently about 4Gb, maybe more.

Music: Medium to Low importance: Since i use Napster UK for most of my music, if i loose it, i can just redownload it. any music that i have ripped, i can re-rip, since the machine is very fast at doing so (rip a CD in iTunes at lossless or using Windows Media Player at Lossless on my Opteron in less time then it takes to play the first track). The only one i need backup of is the music i download from AllOfMp3.com, which i am still not sure of the legality of it, but i PAY for it, so I want to keep it.

Other Random Things: High to Low importance: This is where things get interesting, and complicated. some stuff i have on my mahcine is VERY important, but others are less important. i think the best option is back everything up, and see how things go.

Anyway, back to the article. they talk about the different between Tape backup and Hard Drive backup. interesting read, and makes you think about backup solutions. it will cost me about the same as the REV drive i was looking at (and the discs too) to build a custom server for this. and i was already thinking about doing this anyway, so maybe thats my solution…

bk_keywords: backup, iomega, Exchange, REV, iPod, Zen micro