On Tue, 29 Mar 2011 12:01:49 +0100 Chris Lee <[email protected]> wrote:
> I was just thinking about my virtual tapes and the chances of a > failed sector or two going un-noticed until I needed to restore my > data. Modern hard drives handle bad sectors for you transparently. They swap in a spare sector, without notifying you. The only way you will see a report is if the hard drive runs out of spare sectors. If you see a bad sector report, you have worse problems than a bad backup. Go buy a replacement drive immediately. If you are concerned about the reliability of your hard drives, look into smartmontools. It uses the drive's firmware to test and collect data. Unfortunately sometimes the reports can be rather cryptic to the non-hard-drive-literate. -- Charles Curley /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign Looking for fine software \ / Respect for open standards and/or writing? X No HTML/RTF in email http://www.charlescurley.com / \ No M$ Word docs in email Key fingerprint = CE5C 6645 A45A 64E4 94C0 809C FFF6 4C48 4ECD DFDB
