Joe Konecny wrote:
Am I correct in thinking that if I am backing up only the server running amanda then it makes no sense to use the holding disk?
It still does make sense. The use of the holdingdisk makes greater guarantee that the tapedrive keeps streaming, especially in combination with gzip software compression. Tapedrives with 3, 6 or even 15 Mbyte/sec throughput are not an exception anymore. Unless you have very very fast hardware, the normal backup programs cannot keep up with that speed.
And there are the cases when there are problems with the tapedrive (wrong tape, holiday period, operator couldn't make it in the office because he's sick etc.) Having (at least incremental) backups on holdingdisk is a nice fallback.
The backside is that the total backup procedure can be longer in some cases. The writing to tape only starts when a backup image is complete on disk. But the actual dump phase is usually faster, also a nice feature.
-- Paul Bijnens, Xplanation Tel +32 16 397.511 Technologielaan 21 bus 2, B-3001 Leuven, BELGIUM Fax +32 16 397.512 http://www.xplanation.com/ email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *********************************************************************** * I think I've got the hang of it now: exit, ^D, ^C, ^\, ^Z, ^Q, F6, * * quit, ZZ, :q, :q!, M-Z, ^X^C, logoff, logout, close, bye, /bye, * * stop, end, F3, ~., ^]c, +++ ATH, disconnect, halt, abort, hangup, * * PF4, F20, ^X^X, :D::D, KJOB, F14-f-e, F8-e, kill -1 $$, shutdown, * * kill -9 1, Alt-F4, Ctrl-Alt-Del, AltGr-NumLock, Stop-A, ... * * ... "Are you sure?" ... YES ... Phew ... I'm out * ***********************************************************************
