Everybody should have a drive like this.
Written: Jun 17 '03 (Updated Jun 06 '07)
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Pros: Fast, easy to set up and use
Cons: I think it's more expensive than it should be.
The Bottom Line: One of the few high-capacity tape drives that is priced low enough for individuals to own, even if it still costs more than it should.
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| shamino's Full Review: Exabyte VXA 1 (115.01108) VXAtape |
Before I get into a review of the drive itself, I want to explain why backup devices in general and tape drives in particular are devices that all serious computer owners should have.
Why make backups?
Hard drives fail. It's a fact of life. Anybody who tells you otherwise is either lying or has not been using computers for long enough.
When a hard drive fails, your only solution is to buy a new drive and put all your stuff onto the new drive. You can reinstall and configure your system software and applications (although this will take time), but you can not re-create your documents once they're gone. If you don't have a backup copy, they're lost forever.
Why a high-capacity backup drive?
Some people simply copy their documents to floppy disks, Zip disks, CD-RW or some other convenient media. This is fine for occasional use, but it's not very good for a system-wide backup solution. Some of the reasons why are:
- You probably have a LOT of data to backup. My music collection alone is about 4GB. Sure, I could re-rip all the songs from the CDs if I had to, but I certainly wouldn't want to - that would take a very long time.
- It takes time to reinstall your operating system, apply all of its service packs, then reinstall all your applications from the original CDs (assuming you haven't lost them), and then set up all your preferences. It can take weeks to manually reinstall everything.
So you should have a way that you can back up everything. Drives that come with computers just aren't big enough for this. A CD-RW holds 700M. The largest size Zip drive holds 750M. A DVD-RW drive holds 4.2GB. Sure, you can increase the capacities using data compression, but even if you manage to get 2:1 compression (which almost never happens in real life) you're still several times smaller than a modern hard drive (typically between 40GB and 120GB these days.)
You can make full backups onto small media like CD-RW or DVD-RW, but this means your backup can not run unattended. You'll have to remain near the computer in order to insert new media as your backup software requests it. With a large hard drive, you can give up an entire weekend doing this. And if it's that inconvenient, you won't want to make regular backups, which means you'll lose a lot when your hard drive dies.
Why a tape drive?
So you need a large backup drive. But tape drives cost a lot of money. It's much cheaper to just buy more hard drives.
Some people actually do this - they buy a second hard drive and run RAID software to mirror it. This way, if one drive dies, the data is all available on the other drive. This works great, but has a few problems. It doesn't protect you if you accidentally delete an important file, you can't make an archival copy of the drive, and damage caused by software (like a virus) will clobber your mirror at the same time it clobbers your main drive.
I also know of some people that buy external hard drives and make backups onto them. The price of external hard drives is not nearly as high as it once was, so this is in the realm of possibility. It solves the problems inherent in a RAID system, but introduces other problems. If you want to make archival backups, it's expensive - I'm not sure I'd want to buy a hard drive just to leave it in a closet after one use. And hard drives are fragile - if you drop one on the ground, it will probably break.
The only other kind of drive that holds enough data to be useful for backups is a tape drive.
Why the Exabyte VXA-1 drive?
There are two well-respected manufacturers of high capacity tape drives these days. Sony (with their AIT system) and Exabyte (with the VXA system.) Other kinds of tape drives (like Travan, DAT, DLT, and others) are either much lower capacity, or much more expensive or both. Both AIT and VXA use 8mm tapes, but they are not in any way compatible with
each other.
I chose VXA because I personally believe that Exabyte's products are of higher quality than Sony's. But that's just my opinion. A lot of other people swear by Sony tape drives. I'm not going to try and argue against them.
Exabyte makes two different variations of the VXA drive - the VXA-1 and the VXA-2. The VXA-1 is the less expensive model and writes to tapes at a lower capacity. The VXA-2 costs more but can write more to the same length tape.
VXA tapes come in four lengths. Three of them are compatible with both VXA-1 and VXA-2. The fourth is VXA-2 only. They are:
- V6 (62m) - 12GB on a VXA1 drive, 20GB on a VXA-2
- V10 (107m) - 20GB on a VXA-1, 40GB on a VXA-2
- V17 (170m) - 33GB on a VXA-1, 59GB on a VXA-2
- V23 (230m) - incompatible with VXA-1, 80GB on a VXA-2
The capacities cited above are the native (uncompressed) capacities. With data compression, they will hold more, depending on how compressible the data is.
Ordinarily, I would be interested in the VXA-2 drive, but it costs more than I am willing to spend on a drive that's intended for personal use. The MSRP on a VXA-2 FireWire drive is $1700. The MSRP on a VXA-1 FireWire drive is $999. (SCSI and IDE models cost less, but I can not use them with my Macintosh G4 system.)
So I chose a VXA-1 drive. Given my 80GB hard drive, I will need two tapes to perform a full backup when the drive fills up. but for now, I have only 12GB of data, so a single tape is large enough for my current requirements.
After spending a day shopping for the best price, I found a vendor that sold me the drive for $840 (including shipping).
The VXA-1 FireWire bundle
Exabyte ships the VXA-1 FireWire drive as a packaged system. Included in the box was:
- The drive
- A V17 tape
- A cleaning tape
- A FireWire cable
- A US power cable
- An international power cable
- Documentation (two PDF files on CD-ROM)
- Retrospect Desktop (backup software for Windows and MacOS)
Interestingly, although the packaging and the drive both say they are made by Exabyte, the documentation says it is made by Ecrix. Ecrix is the company (later purchased by Exabyte) that invented VXA technology. I was surprised Exabyte hasn't yet changed the documentation CD.
Installation
Installation is simple. Plug the drive into a power outlet, connect it to the computer with the supplied FireWire cable, and turn the drive on. After a 10-second self-test, the drive is ready to go.
At this point, I should mention that there was a minor glitch. This is actually a problem with the Macintosh operating system and not with the drive. MacOS does not properly recognize the drive when it is first turned on - it sees an undefined FireWire device instead of a VXA tape drive. If you unplug and re-plug the FireWire cable while the drive is turned on, MacOS recognizes it correctly. (Rebooting the computer also works, but that's a more drastic solution.)
The Retrospect backup software is easy to install, but a bit tricky to learn how to use. But I won't go into further detail, since I am already an experienced Retrospect user, and I'm reviewing the drive, not the software. Suffice it to say that someone who has never used Retrospect before should take the time needed to read the documentation before making backups.
Usage
Usage couldn't be simpler. Insert the VXA tape into the drive. The mechanism grabs the tape and loads it - much like how a VCR does. Some lights blink to let you know that it's loading (there are a lot of different patterns for the lights - they are all explained in the drive's documentation.) When the lights stop blinking (in about 20 seconds), the drive is ready for use.
To eject the tape, there's a button on the front of the drive. The button will rewind the tape (which may take a few minutes), then unload it (about 20 seconds) and then eject it.
The drive has a self-cleaning head mechanism, but occasional head cleanings are still recommended. A light on the front of the drive will light up when its firmware decides that a head cleaning is necessary. Cleaning is virtually automatic - just insert the cleaning tape and wait - the drive's firmware will run the cleaning cycle and eject the cleaning tape. When the cleaning tape is used up, the drive will reject it (and blink the "needs cleaning" light) to let you know that you need a new cleaning tape.
Performance
I ran several tests to measure the drive's performance.
Backing up my music collection (4GB of MP3 and AAC compressed audio - effectively uncompressible data) achieved an average data rate of 145M/min (according to Retrospect) during the backup and 130M/min during the verification phase.
Backing up the rest of the hard drive (8GB of assorted files) achieved an average backup rate of 160M/min during the backup and 135M/min during the verification phase.
The manufacturer's advertised top speed is 3M/s (or 180M/min) for uncompressible data. It did not achieve this rate, but the rate I did achieve is still much better than any other backup device I've used in the past (CD, DVD, DAT/DDS2 and Travan/TR4).
Fit and finish
Although nobody buys a tape drive for its looks, the case design does deserve some mention.
The front of the case is solid black, with a translucent white body. A large yellow-on-black FireWire logo is printed on the top of the case.
The case feels very solid. I get the impression that the drive can withstand a drop from a desk to the floor, although I have no intention of actually dropping my drive to test this theory.
On the front of the case is a bright blue LED indicating power. There are four multi-color LEDs on the drive itself that report the status of the drive (all clearly documented in the manual on the CD-ROM.)
A hinged door protects the opening into the drive to prevent dust from entering.
On the back of the case is the power connector, the power switch, a cooling fan, the FireWire connector and a serial port.
The serial port is intended for use with Exabyte's VXATool software for diagnosing problems and installing firmware updates. (VXATool is a free download from the Exabyte web site.) It should be noted that VXATool can also run diagnostics and install firmware through the FireWire interface, so the serial port is something most people will never need to use.
Recommendation
I have only had this drive for a week, so can't say anything about its reliability or about the longevity of the media (aside from citing other people's reviews, perhaps.), but I can say that I am very satisfied with my purchase.
My experiences so far with installation and testing tell me that this is a quality product that should be able to make and restore backups for many years to come. Which is exactly what I want in a tape drive.
My only real complaint is the price. I think the $999 MSRP (or even the $840 I paid) is more expensive than necessary for a drive like this. Especially when the internal SCSI package has an MSRP of $750 and the IDE model costs even less - I don't think adding a FireWire case to a drive justifies a $250 increase in price.
Update: Four years later
This drive worked reliably for three and a half years. Earlier this year, however, it stopped working. It would crash after transferring a few hundred MB of data.
I contacted Tandberg Data (who bought Exabyte and now produces VXA drives.) The drive was out of warrantee, but I was able to pay $300 for repair service. The repaired drive wasn't completely fixed (crashed after transferring a few GB of data), so I sent it back again (repairs are guaranteed for 6 months). This time, it was fixed properly and the drive is once again operating correctly.
Obviously, I'd prefer equipment that never breaks, but I think it is pretty good that a tape drive lasted for 3.5 years, after running for about 6 hours every week (my backup schedule.) And I appreciate the fact that Tandberg's price for repair is a third of the price of a new drive.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 840
Operating System: Macintosh
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Epinions.com ID:
shamino
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Member: David C.
Location: Vienna, VA
Reviews written: 25
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
37 years old. Computer professional.
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