Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2002 08:53:54 -0700 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: "f.johan.beisser" <jan@caustic.org>, Mike Loiterman <mike@ascendency.net> Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: backup solutions Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20020405084626.00b8e360@nospam.lariat.org> In-Reply-To: <20020404203229.K96787-100000@pogo.caustic.org> References: <001901c1dc59$c9f4fac0$0301a8c0@mike>
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At 10:08 PM 4/4/2002, f.johan.beisser wrote: >my own preference is tape. > >tape.. > > 1. tape transfers between machines, and usually OSs fairly well. I've found that tape drives often do not read tapes written on other drives reliably. The electrical, rather than mechanical, interface of a hard drive eliminates that problem. > 2. tar(1) is usually very transferable between various flavours > of UNIX. tar(1) can be used on disks as well as tapes. > 3. tape, and tape drives, tend to be more reliable, I don't find this to be so. Tapes seem to become unreadable in less time, in part due to "print-through" and in part due to the fact that we're all living on a magnet (the Earth) and tape is not shielded from this and other magnetic fields. (Disk drives have a protective metal case.) >and even if > one part of them is damaged, you can usually recover data > with little effort. Hard drives have the same property. And damage is less likely because they're fully enclosed. >hard disks.. > > 1. difficult to transfer between OSs. If you're worried about this, use the Microsoft FAT format, which virtually everything can read. > 2. difficult to transfer between machines If removing the cover and inserting two cables is an issue, try the many readily available "quick swap" mounts used in RAID systms. > 3. damage prone (head crashes, bad sectors as they get older > etc). Tapes do not last as long. And tape cartdridges are often as expensive as entire hard drives! > 4. even in redundant environments, the potential for dataloss > is very high. No higher than for tape! > 5. it's *very difficult* and *very expensive* to recover data > from a damaged hard drive. The MTBF of hard drives is so much longer that they're a net win. Just IMHO, of course. --Brett To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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