Hi,
First, I apologize for the "little" offtopic. But I, like most of
you (if not you weren't on this list :) care for the redundancy of my
important data.
Raids protects against disk failure, UPS against power failure, and
backups (scsi-data-corrupters controllers apart) against whatever Murphy
decides to try on you/your data. Backups are important an essential to me,
and guess that also for you...
I've been trying (commercial and not-commercial) different backup
systems for a while, and came across this conclusions, please let me know
if you disagree:
- Backup software must be simple, efficient and reliable.
- GUIs use to introduce at least 80% of the bugs software has.
- The simpler the software, the lesser chances to have problems,
eg. that f*!?ing lib that make trouble among others you're suffering
right now, (you're restoring, arent you?) now that i _have_ to restore
"nooow!" -helps your boss "aaaargh!" -histerize your users...
So I assume:
- Data (that minds) storage is centralized. No need to work
cross-platform on backup; the other platforms have worked already with the
server to store data on it. So let the server to backup its data without
introducing the complexity and chances to problems that streaming data
across networks may introduce.
- If not, better use wide open, extensively tested
software/protocols (eg. samba) to work with other platforms.
In fact, keep at least backup schemes simple.
That guides me to use simple software: tar, find, cpio, afio,
mt, dump... etc.
My question is: what combination of their use do you think is
better? more reliable? simpler?
If using only tar, chances are that if a spot makes a tape segment
unusable, you've losed that volume, so better mix it with a block archiver
(bzip2?) or use cpio, afio, etc.
so, which are your experiences?
Thanks in advance.
P.S. Don't hesitate to rudely point me to whatever doc on this matter that
you know; maybe isn't one of the not-satisfying ones I've read.
*****---(*)---**********************************************---------->
Francisco J. Montilla Systems & Networks administrator
[EMAIL PROTECTED] irc: pukka Seville Spain
INSFLUG (LiNUX) Coordinator. www.insflug.org - ftp.insflug.org
