Re: Backup media; comments would be appreciated.

From: Chuck Bridgeland (gn32900_at_news-central.giganews.com)
Date: 12/26/03 

Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2003 07:54:11 -0600

On 25 Dec 2003 22:00:34 -0500, Al Dykes <adykes@panix.com> wrote:

>>> I am thinking about a USB ZIP IOMEGA 750 Mbytes external drive as a
>>> device for backing up data for a small home network (backing up Windows
>>> as well as Linux partitions). Thanks for comments about the following
>>> ideas of mine:
>>>
>>> - was thinking about a Seagate travan Tape.
>>
>>Your basic tape drive. They should not be a problem, but probably won't
>>last long past the end of the warranty, in my experience.
>>
>
> Are you backing up for archival purposes or just crash recovery ?

I'm not the original poster.

I do backups for disaster recovery. If I for some reason loose my PC
(theft, fire, whatever), I can be up and running on a new one in a matter of
hours. I keep backup CDs and a Debian install disk set with me most of the
time.

I'm well aware of the issues with tape. Over the years I've used 40MB
tapes, Irwin Accutrak 250MB, standard DC2120 (I don't recall the format
name), TR-1, TR-3, some oddball 2GB Conner drive, and a Tandberg quarter
inch 1.2GB cartridge. Right now I'd be hard pressed to find a (working)
tape drive capable of reading _any_ of those.

For long term, migration (copying from an old machine/OS/file system to a
new one) is probably the way to go. I've got personal data now that's gone
with me like that since 1989, making the transitions from Atari ST, to DOS,
Win31, OS/2, and finally Linux. 

-- 
    cats are too intelligent to leave witnesses
  Chuck Bridgeland, chuckbri at computerdyn dot com