@Pete-S said in Backup strategy for customer data?:
I did some comparisons of the cost involved for disk versus tape and disregarding the difference between the media types.
Tape is much cheaper per TB (about $11/TB) but you need to offset the cost of the tape drive/autoloader.
Disk on the other hand will require a more expensive server with more drive bays and also requires additional disks for partition data.In our case I found that at 150 TB of native storage it will break even. If you have more data in backup storage than that, then tape is cheaper.
How many tapes in the library?
How many briefcases to take off-premises for rotations?
Where is the brain trust to manage the tapes, their backup windows, and whether the correct tape set is in the drives?
If the tape libraries are elsewhere then the above goes away to some degree (distance comes into play).