--On Friday, September 20, 2002 16:57:33 -0700 Michael Hannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Greetings. We've been happily running Amanda on a number of different systems >around here for several years. Up to this point, we've always used a single tape >drive (usually high-capacity) on each tape server. Now we're getting to the point >where > disk capacity is exploding. Tape capacity is increasing as well, of course, but it >appears that we'll soon be in a situation where one large tape drive will be >inadequate. Maybe we're there already. > > This has lead us to consider alternatives to our somewhat simple-minded approach to >backups. One alternative would be to make finer subdivisions of the file systems >that we back up (with GNU tar). I.e., instead of backing up simply: > > /home > > we might put separate entries in the disklist file for: > > /home/annie > /home/bob > . > . > . > /home/zelda > > or whatever. That seems mildly tedious and probably would cause us at least to have >to modify our number of tapes per cycle, buy additional tapes, etc. > > Another thought we had was to throw additional money at the problem and buy some >kind of tape changer. But I have what seems to me to be a fundamental question about >changers that I don't see answered in the FAQ's or .../docs, etc. I.e., if we have > some kind of a tape changer, does it allow us to exceed Amanda's >one-tape-per-session limit? Can we make a single "virtual" tape out of multiple >tapes in the changer? Or is it the function of the tape changer simply to let Amanda >run unattended for > as many sessions as there are tapes in the changer, but still using only one tape >per session? > With or without a changer, Amanda will not back up a disklist entry that is larger than a single tape. A changer (either a real one or chg-manual where you are the changer) will allow you to use multiple tapes on a single backup run, with one or more (however many will fit) disklist entries backed up on each tape. Either way, if you do eventually need to split a filesystem, it is safer if you leave the top level directory in the disklist and use an exclude list to exclude the subdirectories that you add to the disklist. That way it doesn't matter if you forget to add a new subdirectory to your disklist, it will still get backed up. Frank -- Frank Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] Systems Administrator Voice: 512-374-4673 Hoover's Online Fax: 512-374-4501
