Re: Advice needed for backups

Ian McKinnon wrote:

Yes, but the solution of copying to fake 4GB tapes and then to DVD-R/RW
somehow seems inelegant. Especially when you simply do not have the room to
hold the images before you can burn them to DVD-R/RW. I have 500GB total on
my server spread across four drives and I may be able to find maybe 100GB in
30 and 50GB chunks, but not really a solution for doing a system backup.

Then probably you'll have issues. In a normal setup (doing a tape backup) , amanda needs a disk where it puts all the temporary data. Only after preparing the data , it transfers everything to tape. So , if a tape error occurs , you'll still have the backup on disk, allowing you to run amflush on the next day and flush the backup to another tape.

It is just seeming that optical is starting to be feasible as one DVD-R/RW
single later basically holds as much data as an older DAT2 tape (about
4.5GB) not to mention dual layer DVDs and the size keeps rising every year.
Not to mention faster (at least my old DAT2 drive seemed to take forever
writing a tape) and maybe less prone to damage (magnets anyone?). Though as
always stepping on tapes or DVDs is nearly always fatal. Of course price is
always an issue... Hmmm a 100 pack of 4GB DVD-R is about $34 US for me...
Plus the drives are fairly cheap..

The problem is that with such backup needs , I really suggest going the expensive way.. There are tape drives that probably have a capacity that fits your needs better than a standard DVD or a double layer DVD.

--
Pedro Macedo