[CentOS] Tape operation

Dennis McLeod dmcleod at foranyauto.com
Thu May 15 14:57:57 UTC 2008



> -----Original Message-----
> From: centos-bounces at centos.org 
> [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On Behalf Of John R Pierce
> Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 11:34 PM
> To: CentOS mailing list
> Subject: Re: [CentOS] Tape operation
> 
> Fajar Priyanto wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > My only encounter with tape-backup was with Windows 2000. With it, 
> > when we backup things using windows' backup tool, it will create a 
> > 'catalog', then the catalog contains all the backup 
> operations we do 
> > based on date. So, with this we can "append" many backups into one 
> > tape. Next time we want to restore a backup, we can choose 
> what date available in that particular tape.
> >
> > I have zero experience with tape on Linux. I've been 
> googling around 
> > and it seems that the backup operation is very different.
> >
> > For example:
> > - The tape is 400GB (LTO-3)
> > - The data is only 10GB
> >
> > Some of the articles I read imply that 1 tape contains 1 
> backup-file only. 
> > CMIIW. This is certainly not very efficient. The commands used are: 
> > mt, either tar, cpio.
> > ...
> 
> I recommend buying some commercial tape backup software..   
> freeware for 
> tape is woefully poor.
> 
> common packages include...
> 
>     Legato (from EMC)
>     Symantec Backup Exec and its big brother NetBackup
>     Tivoli StorageManager (from IBM)
>     HP DataProtector Express (hoary, but quite robust and 
> cheaper than the above)
> 
> 
> and there's a bunch of smaller players, like NovaStor, Yosemite, etc
> 
> the big ugly with all of these is the tape formats and catalogs are 
> generally NOT interchangable.
> 
> btw, I would think twice about keeping 40 daily backups on the same 
> tape, thats a lot of eggs in one basket.     LTO /is/ quite reliable, 
> but still...
> 
>


I use Bacula on Centos 5.1.
It's a dedicated backup server. P4-1.8/512m/36G drive/DDS4 tape drive.
Backs up local files (backup catalogs, etc...) and network files just fine.
Using DDS-4. It will control Autoloaders, according to the docs, but I don't
have one yet.
Spans tapes just fine (Manual changes...). I looked at amanda at the time,
but there was some issues with Tape spanning, if I recall. 
I force it to my schedule, (full on Wednesday, diffs the rest of the week,
new Volume each week.) but it's perfectly capable of taking care of itself
once you set it up.
I haven't used a Windows backup program in years, but Bacula is at least as
capable as Backup Exec was last time I used it. 2003~ish, with an Exabyte
LTO-2 library.
Will back up windows Clients too, but I'm not doing that. I'm backing up
files to a Samba Server, and that's what goes on tape.
One thing I notice about Amanda/Zmanda, is they are now touting the ability
to backup to Amazon's S3....
I would have pursued it more at the time, if it was an option then.....
You can use BAT, Bacula console and the Gnome Bacula monitor in a GUI, if
you want, or use the CLI....

I can't justify spending money for backup software, when Bacula and Amanda
work as well as they do.....

Dennis





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