On Wed, Jun 21, 2000 at 12:43:11PM -0500, Timothy C. Phan wrote: > kmself@ix.netcom.com wrote: > > > > On Tue, Jun 20, 2000 at 09:57:48AM -0600, Dean Allen Provins wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Hi, > > > > > > > > I'm thinking to get a scsi backup tape for the Potato > > > > box. I'd like to know what is the recommended drive > > > > and what software should be used.
[...] > > > I use an HP DAT drive (35xxx - now called Surestore, I think). Its > > > been use for about 5 years (every night) without a problem. I've used > > > 'tar' and 'dump' and both work just fine. > > > > I'll second the Surestore recommendation. I've got a 2GB DAT which has [...] Note on followup ettiquette -- once a policy of append to existing or prepend to existing has been established, it's preferably to reply consistantly with the existing practice. > Thank for the recommendation. > > One addition question, if I backup using tar with -r (--append) > and -N (--newer) options to the end of the tape, how would > I go about extract or restore the files if the files have been > modified on the daily basis and I do this append with newer backup > daily? Wrong solution. If you're using tar, cpio, or afio, what you want to do is simply append incremental backups to the tape. Usually you have one tape for full backups, and another for, say, a week's worth of incrementals. Don't muck with tar archives on tape. <shiver> To restore a system, you'd restore *each* of the incrementals since the data of the last full backup. This may mean that files you've deleted "reappear" on the system -- if you delete a file, the backup has no way of knowing you've done that, and the file simply exists w/o being overwritten. Several sysadmin books, including _The UNIX Administrator's Handbook_ (Nemeth, et al), and _Essential Unix System Administration_ (Frisch) cover general backup policies. -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc. http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0
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