While a backup to an installed IDE disk is acceptable for things like data recovery or even system recovery after certain types of faults, the fact that the drive is installed makes it equally susceptible to power-related problems. If a lightening strike lands nearby it may well fry the system whole, blowing past any power protection devices. Likewise, a rare but real occurance is a power-supply fault that blows the system. Your installed backup device, with all the backed up data and promise of recovery, becomes a paperweight unless you want to pay a data recovery firm ($$$) to extract the data.
Tape backups are offline, and can be stored on-site or off-site, and are readily portable to new hardware (replacement system). They need to be properly stored to protect them from harm to the data. Setting them within a magnetic field endangers the data. Anywhere you place a compass that pulls it off magnetic north is not a place to set a tape, usually near motors, monitors, large speakers, and many other devices. If you value your system...if it is critical to your business, consider backup and recovery software, like Microlite's BackupEDGE (with RecoverEDGE) or Lone Star Software's Lone-tar and Air-Bag. They verify the backups to the bit-level and make recovery almost ridiculously easy. You can see them at www.microlite.com and www.lone-tar.com. If the bosses blink at the price of the tape drive, tapes and software, ask them how much they pay in salary _per hour_ for the people affected by the system, or how much in sales that system supports per hour or per day, and think about that money going out the door while the system is down and people are not working at full capacity. That usually makes the up-front expense look trivial. sh On Thu, 2003-01-16 at 07:05, Angelini Giuseppe wrote: > > Hello, > > > I would like to setup a system recovery strategy on our linux system > (RedHat 7.2). > I am really familar with dump/restore but apparently it is not > recommended with linux. > My idea was to put a dedicated local IDE disk and run a script invoking > CPIO to save the system > (/ /boot /export) every week on this disk. > The problem is that I do'nt know CPIO enough. > Can somebody advice me or send me an example of CPIO for doing both > backup and restore. > > Any other suggestion will be welcome. > > > Best Regards. > > Giuseppe Angelini -- Scot Harkins (KA5KDU) Systems Engineer Apropos Retail Management Systems [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.aproposretail.com
