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Re: Off-topic: Tape Backups



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Gary,

I've been using Ghost and a removable hard drive for backup for a couple of
years now.  I have a 30GB drive and back all up in disk images.  OK, now
don't start flaming but I use a FAT32 driver on my NT 4.0 system because I
can restore individual files from the Ghost FAT32 disk image.  The removable
drive does allow me to keep it off site but I do have to shut down to remove
it.  With a little extra $$ that would be no problem either.

As far as the TS4 tick file (600+ MB) I get a little assurance by turning on
the "Back Up Tick File" in Morning Update.

Let the flames begin...

Have a good day!!

~Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Fritz <fritz@xxxxxxxx>
To: omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx <omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Friday, March 30, 2001 9:29 AM
Subject: RE: Off-topic: Tape Backups


> Recently OnStream closed up shop. I had one of their drives and
> found the cartridges more unreliable than tape.

THANK YOU!  I was just about to order one of their drives.  Thanks
for saving me from a bad investment.

> I've about concluded that (real-time) offsite backup is a realistic
> option given how inexpensive storage and bandwidth has become.

I like to back up my entire system, 10-12GB or so.  And I have two
other systems I like to back up at least occasionally, which makes
another 5GB or so.  I suppose with an incremental backup that might
be feasible over the web.  Still...  And with TS I've got a 300MB
file that changes EVERY DAY.  Can't back that up incrementally.

Someone else asked if I'd considered CDRs for backups.  I have, but
they're a pain.  I've got one.  They're fussy as hell -- you have to
stop EVERYthing on the system, even your screensaver, because if
ANYthing happens while you're burning the CD, it trashes the CD.  You
can't back up over your local LAN because the data rate isn't high
enough to feed the CD writer.

Supposedly newer CD technology gets around this, but I don't think
that's available in normal drives yet.  And I think CDRs written with
this more fault-tolerant technology can't be read by normal/older CD
drives.

Plus you're limited to 600MB, which brings us back to the "backing up
the whole system" problem.

Gary