VegBank

DDS4 seems near the sweet spot regarding cost vs. specs.

Example unit is http://www.tapebackupandraid.com/tape_library/son-sdtd11000pb.asp
It is ~ $1000 media costing ~$20

Media is 20G uncompressed, I think we should get near 1:2 compression on what we
need to backup -- postgres sql dumps, user loaded files etc.

Speed is 4.8 MB/s assumming 2:1 compression.=> 30G of backup in 1.5 - 2hours ..
reasonable.

Plots can be up to 30kb in size (relevant data contained, not the mdb files that
are up to 3MB!) ... we expect 200K by next year and up to 1 million after that.
=> 200K plots =~ 6G
Plots may get bigger ( there is some interest in images being associated with
them) but I think this backup technology is sufficient.

Timing of this need:

Vegbank 1.0 with an implicit contract with users of safe storage is scheduled
for April 1st ...a foolish and ambitious date but driven by the need to tell NSF
we have completed grant 1.

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I have slight knowledge of backup tech but maybe some of the project specific
info will be of use. I've been know to mishandle ye olde decimal point so take care.

move these bugs down in priority as time is running out

Metallica rules!

After discussing with JH and Colby, I suggest that we DO NOT install a tape
drive on vegbank just yet. Instead, we can automate backups to the new RAID
Colby's putting together which will have 2 TB of space.

We can always install a dedicated tape later.

Original Bugzilla ID was 560