On 2/12/09 2:21 PM, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hmmm....I second the recommendation of "mtx" for managing the tape library > hardware, but that's way too dumb to help manage the data. If you're > dedicating this hardware to the "archive", what's wrong with using a > backup system (Bacula, Amanda, etc.) and simply setting the backup > interval and retention times so that you get a single full backup that's > kept "forever"? True enough; that might actually be a reasonable solution. > Explain the difference in this context, please. Fuzzy, admittedly. A backup is a secondary copy of data in my context, whereas in this case it is the primary copy of the data (and secondary on the second tape, of course). > => Have you considered 2 tapes? tape, it can become unusable. > > Absolutely. Good advice. Indeed, that's why I said "actually probably two" in a subsequent paragraph. > With the pace of change in computer systems, 5 years is a long time to be able > to read an arbitrary piece of media. One advantage to integrating this > "archival" storage into an existing backup mechanism (you _do_ have backups, > right?), is that people tend to migrate data from one backup technology to > another, whereas archives get forgotten until someone wants the data. Yes, I do have backups. I have deduplicated disk backups replicating over the WAN, in fact. The need for specific tape handling ties to large datasets that we don't really want in the backup system as they have the potential to run to substantial amounts of data over time, and as noted, I don't want a primary copy somewhere online, so backing up and deleting with enormous retention periods has a somewhat inelegant feel to it... ... and I shoulod reiterate that this is not actually *my* project per se, it belongs to someone else who seems to be trying to drag me down into it (after I tried so hard to get rid of tapes other than some compliance copies for the financials...) > As far as the archive...be explicit about documenting the format... Of course. > [1] Starting with 9-track, 1600bpi tapes 9 tracks? *Luxury*. We *dreamed* of having 9 tracks... :) Thanks for the commentary. Tim -- Tim Kirby [email protected] _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list [email protected] http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
