On Sat, 3 Nov 2001, Paul Lussier wrote:
> Interestinly enough, I have an HP SureStore 818 DLT with a Quantum DLT7000
> drive in it, and I get:
>
> # mt -f /dev/st0 status
> drive type = Generic SCSI-2 tape
> drive status = 1090519040
[...snip...]
Okay, what version of "mt" are you using, and where did it come from?
Your output is markedly different than mine:
# mt status
SCSI 2 tape drive:
File number=-1, block number=-1, partition=0.
Tape block size 0 bytes. Density code 0x0 (default).
Soft error count since last status=0
General status bits on (50000):
DR_OPEN IM_REP_EN
# mt --version
mt-st v. 0.6
>> I'm paranoid, too, which is why I won't trust gzip+tar, without some
>> evidence that gzip's error recovery has improved. :-)
>
> Anecdotal evidence from me would persuade you, huh? ;)
Well, if you have actually seen tar+gzip encounter a bad block and recover
later on in the stream, it might. :)
> Humor aside, dump < 0.4b10 was *really* horrible. Everything > 0.4b16
> has been pretty reliable.
Hmmmm. Maybe I will look into that. Can it span multiple tapes? Are
file searches (i.e., single file restores) more intelligent than tar?
> His *whole* argument was based around the fact that dump can provide
> incorrect data if the files/file system being dumped are active/
> changing during the backup.
It has been awhile, but the discussion I remember reading involved the
fact that dump on an active filesystem could actually corrupt the filesystem
-- not just the dump, the source filesystem! Granted, this discussion was a
*looong* time ago, so things may well have improved since then.
> Or, if you've got the money ...
Money and our customers seem to be mutually exclusive at times. ;-)
> ... you use RAID/mirroring and back up an isolated image.
The Linux LVM is supposed to be able to do something like this, too.
Have not tried it, though, and it still requires lots of extra disk space.
> I have a thing against ReiserFS. Nothing technical, nothing even
> quantifiable. It's just my gut telling me to stay clear. I don't know
> why.
I have a weird feeling about ReiserFS, too. I think it is because
ReiserFS is the only filesystem I have ever heard of named after the guy who
developed it. ;-)
> ext3 might be viable soon, I don't know. It does have the fact of
> backward compatibility going for it however.
That has made it very attractive to us, as well. Something that gives me
a way to back-out with minimal pain is something I like a lot.
> I like XFS. SGI has been using it for years. It's pretty fast,
> reliable, and well tested in the field. It's been around for quite
> some time. The only thing that's new is the port to Linux.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That is the part that I worry about. If our customer was running IRIX, I
would not have any issues at all with using XFS. Of course, if our customer
was running IRIX, they probably wouldn't be our customer! ;-)
Are there resize tools available for XFS for Linux? How about an ext2 ->
XFS conversion tool?
> I haven't used either of them, so I can't say anything technically for
> or against them.
ReiserFS has some nice ideas, and there are some big sites using with
great success. Notablely, SourceForge.
ext3 has another advantage: Suckers using Red Hat 7.2 will end up using
it. That means more testing. :-)
--
Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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