Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:34:49 -0700 From: Chuck Swiger <cswiger@mac.com> To: Christopher Sean Hilton <chris@vindaloo.com> Cc: FreeBSD Questions <questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Replacing tape changer with USB disk drives. Message-ID: <103D0CB9-6E36-4D84-A0F6-D2C944C101E0@mac.com> In-Reply-To: <F551340C-1A3B-4357-9EC8-2FB2904ECCDD@vindaloo.com> References: <F551340C-1A3B-4357-9EC8-2FB2904ECCDD@vindaloo.com>
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On Jun 16, 2008, at 3:59 PM, Christopher Sean Hilton wrote: > I run FreeBSD 7.0-STABLE on a file server and until recently used a > Tape Changer for backups. I'm considering my options for a new > backup solution. I'm actually thinking of ditching tape and using an > externally attached USB or Firewire disk drive. External drives make nice, fast external hot-standby backups. They are lousy for making long-term backups that you can take offsite, though. I can and have restored decade old 20/40GB and 40/80GB DLTtape IV cartridges, and have happily moved to a 220GB sDLT drive. I've got a few 10-year-old SCSI drives that still work, but I've yet to find a commodity PATA IDE or SATA IDE brand of drives which make it much over 5 years, and a large percentage have issues trying to get much past 3 years of heavy usage. > My experimentation isn't giving me good feelings about doing this > with FreeBSD. To start this off I installed an Adaptec USB 2.0 > interface into my server. In the time that I've been working with it > I notice that it periodically bogs down and that it has the > potential to panic the kernel and cause a reboot. I recognize that > this could be: While I really liked the AHA 1540/2940 controllers, I'm dubious about Adaptec's USB controllers. I've got a few external drives with both USB2 and Firewire 400 interfaces, and they are faster and more reliable going over Firewire. YMMV... Regards, -- -Chuck
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