See my specs please - Need help picking TAPE DRIVE opt. DAT, DLT, LTO

[RockSplat]

Hi!

I need a little help picking a tape drive solution. Here's what I have.

I am just backing up 1 Windows Server 2003 Small Business Server which runs Exchange Server 2003 (sbs version).

I use Windows Server Backup to back up to a Travan 20/40 tape drive today. I have outgrown this and currently need to back up about 36GB of data and this may grow over the next few years to only 50GB.

I am looking for a solution that will work well with Windows Server Backup. I also take the tapes offsite daily so that is why I'm looking to backup to tape.

I am not concerned about speed so much. I am used to the speed of the Travan so I assume anything newer will be faster. If slower will save money then I'm there.

I will purchase 10 tapes to rotate doing full backups every night.

What would you replace this with? I want to keep costs down as much as I can. I am confused with the options at hand (LTO, DAT, DLT).

p.s. I do not have a SCSI adapter today so I will probably need to add one. The Travan is internal and has been using IDE.

What is the most cost effective solution?

Thanks so much!

 

[sminlal]

IMHO for backing up that amount of data a tape drive is overkill. You can buy 2.5" external drives in USB enclosures for less money than just the tape drive itself, let alone the tapes. For example, you could buy 10 of these 250GB drives for about $500.00: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152139