Also Sprach klavs klavsen: > Hi guys, > > is it possible to use star with amanda? > > I've read that star should be a version of tar, that: > > 1) is a lot faster > 2) has all the advantages of dump and tar > 3) has none of the disadvantages > > This ofcourse sounds great to me, do anyone know if this is at all > correct? and if so, howcome noone seem to mention star on the list? > > best regards, from someone who just want the best and most reliable > backup possible :-) > >
I haven't examined star recently (within the last year) but as I recall it was noticeably faster than GNU tar when backing up many small files, probably due to its optimizations to stream to tape from its FIFO. It claims useful POSIX features like subsecond time stamps, arbitrary file sizes, Unicode, preserving POSIX ACLs. GNU tar may have progressed along these fronts as well. I doubt it has the advantages of most dumps, i.e. block level rather than file level backups, with a command prompt to tag which items to restore. I think the main disadvantage of using star in the past for backups is the lack of an equivalent to GNU tar's incremental backup/restore mode. Being limited to nothing but full backups is a bit limiting. star does have a diff mode so perhaps it could made to do lev 1 backups. -- C. Chan < [EMAIL PROTECTED] > PGP Public Key: finger [EMAIL PROTECTED]
