From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Mar 7 20:59:20 2005 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 2F1F816A4CE for ; Mon, 7 Mar 2005 20:59:20 +0000 (GMT) Received: from clunix.cl.msu.edu (clunix.cl.msu.edu [35.9.2.10]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BAB3443D41 for ; Mon, 7 Mar 2005 20:59:19 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jerrymc@clunix.cl.msu.edu) Received: (from jerrymc@localhost) by clunix.cl.msu.edu (8.11.7p1+Sun/8.11.7) id j27KxHl12103; Mon, 7 Mar 2005 15:59:17 -0500 (EST) From: Jerry McAllister Message-Id: <200503072059.j27KxHl12103@clunix.cl.msu.edu> To: freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org (Lowell Gilbert) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 15:59:17 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <44psybgplk.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> from "Lowell Gilbert" at Mar 07, 2005 03:36:55 PM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL2] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: What's the easiest way to do a backup and verify? 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: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 20:59:20 -0000 > > Anthony Atkielski writes: > Anthony Atkielski writes: > > > Jerry McAllister writes: > > > > > Actually, if used frequently for backups - such as every day, DAT is > > > notoriously prone to failure. > > > > I've heard this for years, but I've never encountered it, on my own > > systems or on any others. My drives are HP SureStore SCSI drives. > > Currently I have BASF tapes, and they've gone through about 40 cycles. > > I take backups every few days, or whenever there are large changes to > > the data on the server (most of the time the only changes are log files > > and things like that). > > > > > The only real thing you can do is to read back the tape and look > > > for a couple of files with fairly high inode numbers for each file > > > system dumped. If you can read them, you can assume the tape > > > is readable. > > > > I'm surprised there isn't just some way of reading the tape and doing a > > few simple sanity checks on the data (without comparing it to anything). > > A drive or tape error would likely show on such checks. > > Listing the archive contents might be what you're looking for, then... That sounds good, but... Unfortunately, I have been able to look at the dump index but not read anything past that many times. Or have been able to read a low inode file but not get a higher inode file. Remember that the files are written on the dump in inode order. That is why I suggested trying to read a couple of high inode files - or maybe a few spaced out over the inode range that was dumped. Dump/restore are good utilities, but have some glaring holes in what they can do. ////jerry > _______________________________________________ > 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" >