I would not put something I wanted to keep that long on "doggies little toy" or "ate my momma". You get the picture. I do not think DLT and 8mm are reliable enough to be comfortable that they will be able to be restored that far out. This is a nasty problem for all of us. LTO is too new to bet on and we are limited by what we can do. In the mainframe world you archive the stuff and just keep some tape drives around. Open is different. The issue is the vendors have not stepped up to the fact that open has longterm data now, just like a mainframe.
-----Original Message----- From: Haskins, Mike [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2002 7:10 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Backup Sets for Long Term Storage Our TSM server has a 3494 library with 3590 tape drives. Now faced with meeting long term storage requirements (7+ years), I am looking at generating backup sets to accomplish this. Since backup sets can be used for stand-alone restores from a backup-archive client, I am thinking that a different media type would be better than 3590. There's not much chance that many of my nodes could have access to a 3590 drive. DLT or 8mm seem more appropriate. Any experiences or opinions would be appreciated.