Tape Backups for Personal Use, Using Linux? 32
demaria asks: "As hard drives continue to grow, it's getting more difficult to back up important and not-as-important data. I run a small personal system (about 20 friends - not commercial) and have about 20gigs of data that I'd like to protect in case of disk crash, accidential deletions, or other forms of evil. I'm looking for people's experiences and problems with various personal backup systems under Linux. I can deal with downtime and changing tapes (such as using a 4G native tape). I'd consider CD-R except that I'd need about 30 of them, and I don't find them terribly reliable to begin with. Tape seems to be the cheapest medium. I'm only looking to do backups once every month or two, and only looking to spend about $200 on a drive (SCSI or IDE is fine, as is buying a used one), and no more than $50 on tapes per backup set. Can anyone recommend a good drive that'll work fine under Linux, and good backup software ? (if there's something better than tar -cf of course!)" After just losing a 30G HD due to a power supply surge, I too am in the market for such a solution. (And yes, I am kicking myself for not making backups, fortunately it was nothing critical...just Windows)
Re:eBay is your friend (Score:1)
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Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
IDE/CD-R hybrid sounds best... (Score:1)
Do back up the system separately from
You might want to do an incremental on
Re:Removable hard drives (Score:1)
Me, I'd buy 2-3 drives no larger than $120, plus trays, and alternate between them. But you should size them for two full freshly-installed-system backups (e.g. the fresh 6.2 and the fresh 7.1), plus a couple full
Add space for your incrementals if you're not burning those to CD. Add space for your 'doze boxes if you're backing them up via a small linux partition.
And be sure that if there's NFS mounting, it only flows one way. There is little more annoying than not being able to bring a box down cleanly because it has NFS mounts from a machine you've already shut down.
Re:One a month or so? (Score:1)
Anything important in
Re:No tapes (Score:1)
It's easy to accidentally get the backup set wrong and think you're backing up things which never get copied to the tape. Just make a backup and restore it to another directory and see if what you expect is really there. Do this somewhat regularly and replace your tapes (I do it every year, but perhaps it should be more often?). This way, you haven't waited until things break to see if they work at all.
Used DAT tape drive... (Score:1)
As sidenote the top record on my old 233MHz PC (SCSI and IDE): backup plus harddisc-recording plus MP3-coding plus burning a CD - all without problems, well, except slow interface response...
Why DAT/DSS-1 (maybe -2) and not DLR, QIC or DAT/DSS-3? Simple: tapes and drives are much cheaper (single and per volume).
As someone else noted: make sure to TEST your backups. I myself use GNU tar with the option --verify for this successfully (and --multi-volume, as said above). Additionally I check occasionally with friends wether my DATs still are compatible (i.e. properly adjusted) with their DATs - just in case...
Re:I am in the same boat (Score:1)
Re:I am in the same boat (Score:1)
Internal IDE 30 Gb
I run a tar script based on the Linux System Administration backup chapter.
I have downloaded flexbackup-0.9.8 to play with.
I have tried restoring from tape - it works.
One a month or so? (Score:1)
If it is only every once in a while, why not use CD-R? Seriously, aside from the first backup you probably will not have to backup a large amount of data. Depends on your usage of course, but if once a month or so is acceptable for backups then I doubt there are significant amounts of data which change every day, or month.
You should consider what it would take to plan the backups in such a way as to catagorize the CD-R's. Perhaps, after having a logical plan it will actually make more sense to do it that way anyway.
(A backup of the installed os, a backup of the user structure, etc.)
Re:I am in the same boat (Score:1)
http://www.onstream.com/index_data.html
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Re:One a month or so? (Score:1)
Swap is on a completely seperate partition, untouchable and unviewable by users. It's my opinion that putting swap and
Yes we can blow away
Re:One a month or so? (Score:1)
A complete system backup (including system files, temp - lots of stuff in tmp, and pub would take well over 40GB).
Once a month is just because I'm either too busy or lazy. People's home directories will change often. Once a month is only acceptable because this is to be done during my free time.
Minimal plan is to backup
Re:One a month or so? (Score:1)
Re:One a month or so? (Score:1)
But our system needs and usage is different from the norm with respect to this.
We use
Something I'd do on an enterprise, 5000 user machine? Nope. But we are not that.
Re:CD-R, capacity, and multitasking (Score:1)
When I make a backup, I like to be sure that I can actually use my backup to restore the current situation in case of a disaster. And a disc crash is such a disaster and will eventually happen. So it doesn't make sense to back up some saved games here and some documents there. If you do that, you'll have to spend quite a lot of time installing your OS on a fresh system and restoring the backup after that.
The backup I make (and I did mention both full and incremental), simply writes everything on my entire filesystem to tape. So if a crash occurs, all I have to do is boot from a specially prepared floppy, insert the correct tape and after a while I have the exact configuration back without a hassle.
Even then, newer Plextor drives have BURN-PROOF technology, which steps down burn speed when the PC starts falling behind.
Ok, I agree. But if you want to use such a (new) drive and CD-RW, you're absolutely going to spend more than I did.
Even then, what else (other than cracking RC5) are you going to be doing with your workstation while you're asleep?
My machines hardly ever do work when I'm asleep, but there are enough people out there who have their machines work flat out all night. I always wondered what strange things Oracle was doing on my HP9000 machines at night. It was something with indexes, I was told by the DBA, but I sure know it was a lot of work. And compiling huge programs is something that goes better at night. May be a bad example, but when I was playing with kernel-compiles on an ancient 486, I preferred to start the compile before I went to bed.
Well, a CDR could be a solution, but if you're going to buy something anyway, I'd still advise to go for a tapedrive. And I think most professional environments support me in this, because I've never seen a professional machine being backed up on a CD. Sure, a one-time backup of a Windoze box with Norton Ghost, but not a daily backup, meant to be a complete and up-to-date backup.
Re:One a month or so? (Score:1)
Re:One a month or so? (Score:1)
Re:iomega (Score:1)
To complain, fill out this form [iomega.com].
Travan5 Atapi drive works w/Linux (Score:1)
Redhat 6.2 kernal has support builtin for the drive, so tar /dev/ht0 worked as soon as the tape drive was installed.
I back up multiple machines at once by nfs mounting them from the pc w/the tape drive.
Avoid the free Amanda backup program, as its medusa-like config is much too slippery. (I'm not a beginner but 2 weeks of work couldn't tame that beast.)
I found that upgrading mt to 0.6 seems to make it work better re: its bsf/fsf commands (though still the file number stays at zero).
Using tar, you probably want --ignore-failed-read and --verify. There is a --exclude option for names but i haven't found a way to simply leave out specific directory trees.
I wrote alot of details on all of this, email me if you want them.
If you don't need archival storage (eg, you don't have fear of crackers infecting your filesystem long before its discovered), you're probably better off just putting an old, monitor-less, fat-drived pc on your lan/router and backing up to that. For speed and ease of use.
Unfortunately, Iomega's Peerless 20GB drive is only for Windows and Mac (OS8 & OS9).
No tapes (Score:1)
So, she got this 250$ Tape backup system going, backing up every Friday. Finally, the fateful day came, and the computers HD crashed.
So, I reinstalled windows on a fresh harddrive, And installed the Backup program.
Lo and behold, you could not get a thing of the tapes. We tried everything. The only thing we could do was send them away to get analysed and burnt to Cd, but that cost like 2 grand.
So she had to call out a professional to Get the crap of the old harddrive (the Windows file had corrupted, the Harddrive was still fine, I was only 11 at the time and didn't know).
Even the Proffesional though couldn't get the stuff off the tapes.
And, they were as slow as tar, it took 1 hour to back up about a gig.
So, get an extra harddrive, stick it in every Friday, and run Norton ghost or something.
Personal Backups (Score:1)
Cheap or Reliable? (Score:2)
I currently use CD-RW drives to backup my computers at home. The drives and media are cheap and reliable. Changing CDs is a pain in the neck, but this can be alleviated if you use backup software that supports incremental backups.
Re:Don't use tapes (Score:2)
Now for doing cheep backups. Go with IDE disks in removable carriers. As another said, make a backup system. You don't even need to give it a monitor. Log into it over your local net. Get a bunch of 70+Gig hard disks and put them in carriers. Plug two in and backup to them, then remove then and store one off site.
You mentioned surge dammage. Where are your surge suppressors? UPS? Line conditioner? A transformer style line conditioner does alot for filter out spikes just by it's design. The power for my computers first goes into a line conditioner, then through the UPSes and finally power strips. Each stage has surge absorbers. Kinda a defence in depth. Kinda seams like overkill, but then I haven't lost computers when other in the building had all their electronics toasted. Yes I replaced the power equipment after that surge. The MOVs in the line conditioner let the magic smoke out.
Removable hard drives (Score:2)
Benefits are - it's very fast, very reliable, cost effective, and you can very quickly access files in a random fashion.
I use a second system and back up over ethernet so I can power the second system off and swap out drives as need be. A cheap PC with a removable tray, two 75gb 7200 RPM IBM Deskstar drives, a network card and an extra monitor can be had for well under a grand.
eBay is your friend (Score:2)
Re:DLT + BRU (Score:2)
Personal backup solution. Not enterprise.
$3000 is a bit out of the personal product price range.
Re:Removable hard drives (Score:2)
CD-R, capacity, and multitasking (Score:2)
A minor problem with CDs is that 600MB is not too much when making backups.
What are you trying to back up? Pr0n? Warez? Normally, I just archive those to CD-R and stuff them in the CD-ROM changer. Seriously, what type of 600MB data set on your workstation changes on a daily or even weekly basis?
But the real disadvantage is the chance of a failed write. If you burn, you'd better do nothing else with the machine.
I can't see how that'd be such a problem. Recent versions of Linux and Windows 2000 have soft realtime support, which guarantees that the burn process will get called at least once a second, which should be enough to keep a 2 MB buffer at 1200 KB/s (8x) full. Even then, newer Plextor drives have BURN-PROOF technology, which steps down burn speed when the PC starts falling behind.
Even then, what else (other than cracking RC5) are you going to be doing with your workstation while you're asleep?
And if something fails, you'll have to start over again, on a new disc of course.
Only with non-rewritable media. The newer CD-RW media can be written at 8x on newer drives.
To sum up, I'd recommend a Plextor CD-RW changer to help solve both the "650 MB is too small" problem and the "soda coaster" problem.
2nd hand tapedrive will do (Score:2)
A tape costs about $12 here. They're not too easy to find, most kiddies in smaller computer shops don't even know the name Exabyte, leave alone 8mm.
- I need an Exatape, 8mm, 112m please.
- Huh? Never seen those before, I have these...
- That's DDS, that's 4mm, that won't fit.
- Hmm, then what do 8mm tapes look like?
- Well, bigger for example... Never mind.
(Yup, this is a real-world conversation I've had twice already...)
But a colleague of mine found a bunch of those tapes that weren't being used anymore (most of them still shrink-wrapped) so now I make backups on this thing. Nice and smooth, I start dump just before I go to bed, next morning before I go to work I change the tapes and when I come home in the afternoon, everything's safe and sound on tape.
An incremental backup is a little trickier, at least in the way I do it. I'm Dutch, so I hate wasting tapes *grin*. So I simple made an index on the cassette and when an incremental backup is done, I record the position on the index. Next backup is simply started from that position. So I have 2 tapes for the full backup and 1 for several incremental ones.
Restoring is quite easy, dump's counterpart, restore, has the option -i, which makes it interactive. It's like having a shell and walking through your file system. Simply mark the files you want restored and presto...
The Exabyte works for me, but if I ever find a not-too-expensive DDS3-drive, I'll surely buy it. After all, DDS3 stores a lot more data on a tape that's easier to buy.
I don't think a CDR is a good solution for backups, although most sales guys in computer stores advise me to buy on from them ...because it's the best way to do backups. A minor problem with CDs is that 600MB is not too much when making backups. But the real disadvantage is the chance of a failed write. If you burn, you'd better do nothing else with the machine. And if something fails, you'll have to start over again, on a new disc of course.
If I were you, I'd go for a 2nd hand tapedrive. Be sure to check if you can get tapes for it, BTW. DDS2 or 3 should be close to ideal.
DLT + BRU (Score:2)
Get a decent tape drive:
http://www.quantum.com/Products/Quantum+l+DLTtape
And a decent app:
http://www.estinc.com/products.php [estinc.com]
Or if perhaps you need a slightly larger tape "drive":
http://www.storagetek.com/products/tape/9310/ [storagetek.com]
Re:I am in the same boat (Score:2)
What size do you use? etc
The Lottery:
I am in the same boat (Score:3)
The Lottery: