I had a Quantum 8000 go bad on me, took it apart to get the tape out. It is amazing those things work at all when you see how the leader is grabbed from the tape casette and wound onto the reel. -----Original Message----- From: Mike Hicks To: tclug-list at mn-linux.org Sent: 7/24/03 7:58 PM Subject: Re: [TCLUG] Backups in DataCenter On Thu, 2003-07-24 at 15:54, Duncan Shannon wrote: > We are trying to evaluate our backup options. Id like to hear what the > list has to say... I really like Amanda for multi-system backups, as it can be very automated. However, it can be complicated to set up (it's an old Unix guru tool in many ways) and it has a few really annoying restrictions. One backup cycle requires at least one tape, and you also can't back up a partition that, when compressed, is larger than a tape. In addition, I have found that Amanda is not really designed for creating archival backups that you keep for long periods of time (like months or years). Fortunately, the recent stable release allows for backing up to a directory on disk, which is something I'd recommend. Someday, I plan to pack a pile of disks in a box (like Real-Time's Gladiator mirror machine), and just back everything up onto a RAID 1 or RAID 5 array (depending on how cheap drives get, I guess ;-) I find disk drives to be much more reliable than tape drives, and I think disks turn out to be fairly good when you compare prices. In addition, even a slow hard drive is probably faster than all but the fastest tape drives. At my last job, we went through probably 3 DLT drives in the 2 1/2 years I worked there (if a tape is inserted when you power the thing up, say goodbye to your drive). I had bought a DDS-3 drive for my own personal use, and it only lasted a few months (though that may be a power supply issue with the external enclosure I had). Like I said, I haven't had much luck with tapes.. On the other side, tapes are nice and portable, and therefore are very good for off-site storage. Of course, hard disks can be nicely portable, especially if you use FireWire or USB enclosures. -- _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ ___ _ _ __ Error 008: Remove aluminum / \/ \(_)| ' // ._\ / - \(_)/ ./| ' /(__ foil, remote control \_||_/|_||_|_\\___/ \_-_/|_|\__\|_|_\ __) devices and spleen. [ Mike Hicks | http://umn.edu/~hick0088/ | mailto:hick0088 at tc.umn.edu ] _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list