From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Nov 1 16:44:01 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AFD1816A4CE for ; Sat, 1 Nov 2003 16:44:01 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail007.syd.optusnet.com.au (mail007.syd.optusnet.com.au [211.29.132.55]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 45E4A43FCB for ; Sat, 1 Nov 2003 16:44:00 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from anubis357@optusnet.com.au) Received: from 10.0.0.101 (rdlax10-a123.dialup.optusnet.com.au [198.142.5.123])hA20hrj27416; Sun, 2 Nov 2003 11:43:54 +1100 From: anubis To: "Rick Duvall" , Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 10:47:11 +1000 User-Agent: KMail/1.5.2 References: <000701c3a031$00b09500$f901a8c0@ws21> In-Reply-To: <000701c3a031$00b09500$f901a8c0@ws21> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200311021047.11932.anubis357@optusnet.com.au> Subject: Re: Verifying integrity of Backup Tapes X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 02 Nov 2003 00:44:01 -0000 On Sat, 1 Nov 2003 02:31 pm, Rick Duvall wrote: > I have some backup tapes that I have been using each once per week for > about 8 months. I am getting errors when running amverify on a couple of > them. To be sure that my tapes are still good and not just the system > giving me fits, it would be nice if I could run a program that would write > bits to the tape in question and try to read them back, telling me which > blocks on the tape are bad. Is there such a tool that does this? I guess > it would be kind of like a scandisk is to a DOS Floppy as what I am talking > about is to a Unix Tape. > > Sincerely, > > Rick Duvall > Online Highways > System Administrator > (541) 997-8401 x 111 > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to > "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" If I get errors on tapes I bin them immediately. Tapes wear and they do have a life span which varies from tape to tape. If you are backing up something it is obviously important so take no chances in loosing it. On my windows system I have the o/s backup set to verify to make sure the data is ok. When it crashed and had to be restored from tape I found that 2 of the tapes that were verified couldnt be read. The tapes were about a year old. The amount of money the company lost from having an old tape could have paid for a new server, several tape drives and media. The lesson I learnt was tapes are cheap, turn over frequently. Remember with dds technology they are a helical scan head. Tapes backed up on one dds drive are not necessarily readable by any other dds drive as I found out the hard way. Look at DLT as an alternative. Whatever you get make sure you add in a 3 year warranty. Get one from hp or ibm. We had our hp fail at 4pm. Had a new one on site 10am next day. They only fail when you really need them.