From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Dec 24 11:45:32 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id LAA12265 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Thu, 24 Dec 1998 11:45:32 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from loviatar.webcom.com (loviatar.webcom.com [209.1.28.41]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id LAA12253 for ; Thu, 24 Dec 1998 11:45:21 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from u@webcom.com) Received: from kigal.webcom.com (kigal.webcom.com [209.1.28.57]) by loviatar.webcom.com (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id LAA17357; Thu, 24 Dec 1998 11:44:54 -0800 Received: from [204.143.69.43] by inanna.webcom.com (WebCom SMTP 1.2.1) with SMTP id 15815218; Thu Dec 24 11:43 PST 1998 Message-Id: <36829A15.7A8A@webcom.com> Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1998 14:46:29 -0500 From: Graeme Tait Organization: Echidna X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02 (Win95; I) Mime-Version: 1.0 To: Greg Lehey Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: SCSI Tape Drive Recommendations? References: <19981219214449.A13107@drwho.xnet.com> <19981223143817.Y85005@freebie.lemis.com> <19981223010016.B4910@drwho.xnet.com> <19981224121025.C12346@freebie.lemis.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG 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