Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 09:42:20 +1100 From: Tony Landells <ahl@austclear.com.au> To: j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: tar to file or tar to device ? Message-ID: <200010122242.JAA20459@tungsten.austclear.com.au> In-Reply-To: Message from j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> of "Thu, 12 Oct 2000 20:42:03 BST." <20001012204203.A45010@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
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> IIUC, tar to a device, in my case /mnt/zip, treats the whole disk like a big > tar file, not allowing any other use, correct? Assuming you mean /dev/zip rather than /mnt/zip, then yes, you're accessing the device itself, and you will blow away any information already on the disk; such as the "data" that represents the filesystem. If you really mean /mnt/zip, then you probably have the disk mounted, in which case you're writing to a file on the device. > While tar to a file on > that device allows other files to be stored there as well, correct? Is > there any advantage to one approach over the other? Yes, and yes. How the advantages stack up depends on what you really want to do with the disk. If you tar directly on to the device, then you'll be able to squeeze on slightly more data (because you're not reserving space for the filesystem). The difference, however, will be fairly small. Another consideration is that if you want to use the disk somewhere that you aren't the sys admin, you may be able to access the disk but not mount it. And also the file "should" be retrievable on most UNIX and UNIX-like systems; where the choice of filesystem type may limit the systems on which you can access the data. Now if you have your ZIP disk formatted for DOS--much as I hate it--you can probably access it on most systems (Windoze, Mac, many UNIX and UNIX-like systems). Whether they can do anything with the tar file when they get it is another issue... There are some other points, but these are the ones that have typically been important to me. I'll leave others to point out the ones that have been important to them. Cheers, Tony -- Tony Landells <ahl@austclear.com.au> Senior Network Engineer Ph: +61 3 9677 9319 Australian Clearing Services Pty Ltd Fax: +61 3 9677 9355 Level 4, Rialto North Tower 525 Collins Street Melbourne VIC 3000 Australia To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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