Sony SDT-9000 DDS-3

If you have a backup requirement of up to 12 GB, then this might be a good choice. One problem though could be that the technology might become outdated over the next two to three years. The Sony DDS-2 drive has a transfer rate of 3.8GB/hour. With this rate it can backup the entire tape in about 3 hours. The low capacity and slow speeds make it apt only for backup requirements of entry-level servers, workstations, or even for small workgroups. In our tests, the drive performed well and as per its rated speeds in all backup and restore tests. But like its elder cousin, the DDS-4, it did not do any compression on normal office data.

The pricing is where this drive is good at. The initial drive comes under 25K and the media per GB cost is the lowest in this segment. Plus, it’s backward compatible with DDS-2 and DDS formats. Only issue could be that the DDS-3 format might become outdated in a few years, and finding support for it could become a problem. A better option could be the DDS-4 drive, since price differential between the two is also not very significant.