Adding RDX device to Backup Exec 2012, 2014, and 12.5
Sunday, May 24th, 2015Overview: The business was using a tape drive to back up data from various systems using Backup Exec. The tape drive was experiencing problems, so rather than purchasing another tape drive the decision was made to purchase SSD drives.
Purchasing SSD drivers for backup purposes is considered the norm. However, there are a few considerations before moving from a tape drive to a RDX device.
- If the organization needs to be SOX (Sarbanes – Oxley) compliant and are currently using a tape drive, the tape drive will need to be in working order for audit purposes since the previous seven years’ worth of backups are on tape.
- RDX devices do not provide the data compression of tapes. If the data being backed up to tape was 200 GB with a compression ratio of 2:1 the backup takes 100 GB on tape but will take 200 GB on an RDX device.
- The up-front costs of implementing a RDX solution is lower that a tape system, but the SSD disks tend to be 2 to 3 times the price of comparable tapes. Expect to get one year out of the SSD disk before it needs to be replaced, so over a period of time the costs associated with a RDX solution will equal the cost of the tape solution.
- Many RDX solutions are USB in nature where tapes drives are generally SCSI, so the backup will be limited by the USB speed. As the SSD disk becomes fragmented, expect the backup to take a longer period of time to complete.
