Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1998 14:46:29 -0500 From: Graeme Tait <U@webcom.com> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: SCSI Tape Drive Recommendations? Message-ID: <36829A15.7A8A@webcom.com> References: <19981219214449.A13107@drwho.xnet.com> <19981223143817.Y85005@freebie.lemis.com> <19981223010016.B4910@drwho.xnet.com> <19981224121025.C12346@freebie.lemis.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Greg Lehey wrote: > > Chances are, I'll probably have to settle for one of those since > > they are about all I can afford (the only thing better I"ve seen is > > the Exabyte 8700LT 8mm external, and I don't like it precisely > > *because* it's external and it looks more like a Sony Walkman than a > > tape drive). > > What's wrong with it being external? Yes, it looks silly, but it > seems to be a good drive (and, before you ask, yes, it's supported). A problem with most PC's is that they suck - literally. Instead of using a fan to draw air in through a filter and pressurize the case, they suck air in through every pore and out via the power supply. And PC's are often operated in much dirtier environments than large-scale tape systems. I've removed dust bunnies the size of elephants from internal tape drives, little door flaps notwithstanding. Perhaps a naturally-cooled external drive would be much cleaner and more reliable? All this talk about poor reliability is not encouraging, as I am looking for a backup solution for a remote web/mail server. Unattended tape solutions like changers are awfully expensive, but so are the NOC fees for changing tapes manually with a single-tape machine. I'm tempted to buy an external tape machine like the Exabyte 8700LT for home and try transferring backups over my dialup connection overnight (10 MB/hr for compressed data). Since most of the dynamic data on the server is text files like web pages, this should compress quite well. I guess such a procedure could be automated. However, although this might work OK for partial or incremental backups, I hate to think of trying a full backup. Maybe with a cable connection. BTW, what about dump for backup to disk? -- Graeme Tait - Echidna To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?36829A15.7A8A>