Michael> I agree. Now I'm hoping some propeller-head type figures out Michael> a "scheme" for performing backups to WORM media. We're all Michael> familiar with (what I believe is called) the towers of hanoi Michael> approach which seems to have been created with the Michael> characteristics of tape media in mind.
It's already been done actually. Using WORM media isn't any different from using any other type of media which has an infinite retention policy. It's just that the media enforces it. :] The big issue with WORM media is the sheer cost of the media, and the need to shuffle lots of pieces of media just to backup one regular sized harddisk. I know people use Bacula to backup to DVD, but they must be shuffling discs like crazy, or they have a DVD autoloader/jukebox type thing. Or they only backup a subset of their data. Me, I'm lazy and careless so I backup all my data, it's just simpler to not worry about. Michael> What I've been trying to sort out is what you do when you Michael> can't reuse your media. I can do a backup to disk as a daily Michael> but does doing backups of that to WORM make any sense? This Michael> is a puzzle for better brains than mine. Sure, backups to WORM makes sense if you're in an industry which requires your backups to NOT be changeable, or in my mind, your *archives* cannot be changed once they are written. EMC and NetApp both sell products to the financial industry which allows you to make a backup and then lock it, so it can't be changed. Of course this means they sell lots of disks and lots of expensive licenses to manage all this. Whee! For a home user... WORM can be ok, but again you need to understand the lifetime limitations, as well as the difference between an archive and a backup. Most people consider a backup to be an archive. And it's not. Archives are forever and unchanging. Backups are for a defined set of time, and can (should?) be recycled. These days, with lawsuits and such, alot of businesses are either making backup retentions quite short and automatic, or they go to the other extreme and are keeping them for a *really* long time. John _______________________________________________ bblisa mailing list [email protected] http://www.bblisa.org/mailman/listinfo/bblisa
