Shades of the late-’90s and early-’00s again…      I decided I needed a reliable and practical backup for my systems, and having an array of n-TB disks seemed complete overkill (and _expensive_)..

So, I’m getting a reasonably-priced HP Ultrium 960 LTO-3 external drive, which is relatively expensive (£450), but the tapes (400GB / 800GB ‘compressed’) are not – about £15 each.

Why ‘old’ LTO-3 and not ‘newer’ LTO-4 or ‘newest’ LTO-5?    Well, the LTO-4 drives are around £1,300+ each, and LTO-5 even more..     I don’t mind swapping a few tapes, to save around a thousand pounds..

Now – I need to rummage around in my storage boxes, to find an old Adaptec SCSI U320 LVD I/O card..     I think I have one, somewhere…?

The last time I had a tape backup system was in the early-’00s, with a DDS (DAT) SCSI external drive, with (if memory is correct) 4GB tapes!