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Re: Backup (hardware) for Linux




> > Can anybody suggest a good drive for backups?  We backup more than 12GB 
> > daily, and DDS-3 DATs, what we use now, are quite unreliable and tend to 
> > get ruined after a while.

I never used DDS-3, but since I live in a very high-tech area and don't
see DDS-3 in the stores, I'm guessing it is still very expensive and rare
in Israel too. We're doing really fine here with a DDS2 tape changer
(magazine of 12 cassettes auto-changer) and amanda, a (free) backup system
that choses which filesystems to backup at level 0, 1 or 2 at any backup
run, to use the storage space to the max, and always have at LEAST one
full backup (level 0) a week, usually more. the server is running with 45
gigs of disk space, I'm estimating close to 30 of them actually allocated
by files, and we get it all backed up daily by this.

> > 
> > What other systems are worth getting?  Are tape drives worth the expense? 
> >  Linux support, expense and reliability are my main criteria.

Linux will PROBABLY support most modern SCSI drives, the big question is
cost/performance. I find that in 5-50 employee companies, DDS2 is usually
the best. above that there are Exabyte monsters and DLT, but that's a
different level of expense in most cases (but take a look at onsale.com if
you're storage hungry, the other day I saw there a $60k DLT 1.9 terrabyte
HP BU system for $6k)

> 
> Yikes, I just bought an HP tape backup system and DDS-2 DAT media. How 
> many times can I expect to use each tape? Is the drive itself unreliable 
> or just the media? Does the media deteriorate over time or because of re-use?

I think they are guaranteed for 6-7 generations, and would probably last
20 too, I change my cassettes after about 6 or 7 uses and stick the old
ones in a safe...

Amanda uses standard dump and restore, so running restore in interactive
mode will actually read the cassette and tell you if there is a problem,
there is no automtic read-after-write like in BRU.

-- 
Ira Abramov    <ira(a)scso.com>     whois: IA58   (a linux enthusiast)

She sells cshs by the cshore.       - Rob Malda