On 9/16/2010 12:20 PM, John R Pierce wrote:
>
> actually? tapes like LTO/DLT write *faster* than file systems on hard
> disks. in fact the biggest issue in many LTO/DLT backup systems is not
> being able to READ the source fast enough to keep the tape busy.
>
>
> re: BackupPC... while this is a neat solution for backing up a
> small-to-moderate number of workstations, I don't think its a very good
> solution for archival backups of a single server,
This sort of depends on the nature of the files and rate of change.
Backuppc pools all copies of identical content with optional
compression, whether from multiple backup runs or different targets. If
you have huge files with frequent small changes, it has to make new
complete copies each time, but otherwise it can aggregate many times
what you'd expect the disk space to hold and you can access it much more
easily than finding the right set of tapes.
> NOR does it scale very
> well, as the storage pool it creates becomes an ungodly mess of links
> and becomes itself very very difficult to replicate or backup or do
> maintenance on.
That imposes some limits, but they are sill fairly big if you think in
terms of image-copying the whole filesystem if you need to replicate.
> Systems like Amanda and Bacula really work better with
> autoloader/libraries, like the Quantum PX502 I use in my lab at work
> (acquired surplus from another department, this holds 28 tapes and has
> two LTO3 drives).
Agreed there. Backuppc doesn't know much about tapes and nothing about
changers. But for straight long-term archiving you could wrap a script
around BackupPC_tarCreate to save whatever you wanted off to tape. And
you are on your own for restoring it, but it might be an advantage to
have a standard tar archive than something only a certain program knows
how to access.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com