archiving as opposed to backing up

[Jules Richardson]

On Mon, 2004-09-20 at 20:36 -0700, Zane H. Healy wrote:
> >On Mon, 2004-09-20 at 15:59, Teo Zenios wrote:
> >  > Tape is still the best method for archiving files, if its not worth
> >>  the time
> >>  to backup a file to DAT then the file is not worth backing up (keeps
> >>  you
> >>  from archiving things you will never need). I use cdrs for music and
> >>  copying
> >  > other cd's.
> 
> PLEASE tell me you don't archive data to DAT tapes!  They're DAT and 
> 8mm tapes are among the worst storage formats around.

FWIW, I've never had a problem with reliability of the tapes - it's the
drives which fail ridiculously often. 

These days I have enough storage that I backup to spare 'offline' hard
drives and 2 copies of everything on DAT, plus I keep two working DAT
drives around at all times just in case one suddenly dies on me (as
happened *again* just a few weeks ago). 

As with Teo I use DDS2 drives so the amount of data on any one tape
isn't *that* big (for the same reason I use lots of small-capacity hard
disks rather than one big one)

> If you must archive to tape, archive to DLT,

I still regret selling my DLT 7000 drive a few years ago. I got it free
when it was thrown out from my old work; it had been dropped and the
mechanism shifted inside and jammed - only someone had lost the
paperwork and it couldn't be returned under warranty so just got
chucked. Ten minutes with a screwdriver and it was operational again.
Wish I'd kept it now...

cheers,

Jules