On 8 Jan 2008, at 08:08, Nick Guenther wrote:
> On Jan 7, 2008 7:22 AM, knitti  wrote:

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>> On 1/4/08, Nick Guenther  wrote:

>>> How would you verify the whole disk is readable? And if it's all

>>> readable, how do you ensure the data is still the same pattern

>>> you put

>>> on before?

>>

>> the posting von hannah shows what to do. Ths big picture is this:

>> Backup (and/or archiving) is not fire-and-forget. You have to know

>> how

>> long you want to store this data to choose the right technology and

>> media. And you have to have a process to verify that your data is

>> good

>> after this time. If you want backups for five years, and your life/

>> business

>> won't come to an end should you lose some data in spite having backed

>> up, use DVDs or HDDs, verify after backup and just store the media.

>> For more than five years and more-or-less critical data, use tape and

>> verify every x time. If you approach ten years and up, you have to

>> know how you get hardware to read the tapes...

>>

You should REALLY install amanda www.amanda.org and I'd love to get a

thread going about how to set up and manage amanda under OpenBSD. It

looks fantastic but I've installed it on Debian Etch at the moment.

I'll probably convert to OpenBSD soon when we get a decent discussion

going. Seriously if you want to get a decent automated backup system

going look at amanda. I think it's under ports too :)
>> At least the LTO spec states that drives of the *current* generation

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>> _have to_ read and write also tapes one generation older and

>> read tapes which are two generations older. So if you have LTO-2

>> tapes around, you will be able to read them with LTO-4 drives (which

>> should be checked, but does actually work in this case).

>>

yup I've just taken delivery of an LTO4 and a semi ok computer (it's

a dell don't be sick).
>> Some companies and universities with huge archives spend

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>> large sums just to copy their archived data to the newest technology

>> every couple of years.

Still have a few DLT drives. My office server running OpenBSD on a

sun blade 100 has a DLT4000 because Linear head technology is so

safe. Tapes don't often get mangled (I'm looking at you Mr dds drive).
>

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> Ah... it's the (http://www.)longnow(.org/). An unsettling concept,

> that.

>

> -Nick