Invisible wrote:
> I guess we *could* back up to a hard drive. But I'm not really that keen 
> on the idea. We would have to shut the server down to connect the drive, 

USB.  Or, apparently, something called "eSata" now?

Oh, is your machine back in the prehistoric pre-USB era still? So buy a 
$200 desktop machine that *does* have USB, put XP on it or something, 
and back it up over the network.

> start it back up again, format the drive,

Format it once, yes.

> copy all the data, somehow verify the data, 

They call that "the backup program".

> I don't have any hard evidence to back this up, but isn't power-on the 
> most common time for a HD to fail? (Rather like lightbulbs.) Wouldn't 
> the constant cycling tend to wear them down?

Once a day is "constant"?  Besides, it's your backup drive. Buy two. 
Switch back and forth between them. When one fails, buy another.

> The other small problem is that 30 harddrives presumably take up 
> slightly more space than 30 DDS tapes. ;-)

Well, yeah, but they also last a lot longer, I expect.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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