From owner-freebsd-stable Sat Aug 1 10:11:38 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA28270 for freebsd-stable-outgoing; Sat, 1 Aug 1998 10:11:38 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from SchematiX.net (schematix.net [24.234.31.158]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id KAA28263 for ; Sat, 1 Aug 1998 10:11:36 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from scott@SchematiX.net) Received: from localhost (scott@localhost) by SchematiX.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id KAA09722; Sat, 1 Aug 1998 10:10:29 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from scott@SchematiX.net) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 10:10:29 -0700 (PDT) From: Scott To: Nathan Dorfman cc: Andrew Bromage , freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: CD writers as a backup medium In-Reply-To: <19980801105021.B12513@fcc.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sat, 1 Aug 1998, Nathan Dorfman wrote: > On Sat, Aug 01, 1998 at 06:04:01PM +1000, Andrew Bromage wrote: > > G'day all. > > > > Just wondered if anyone had thoughts on using a CD writer with > > FreeBSD-stable as a backup medium. Does the lack of hard real-timeness > > matter? Like, if some other process starts thrashing, will my CD be > > ruined? Is the support for some writers better than others? Should I > > just stick with tape? > > Yes, the lack of hard real-timeness matters. CD writers ideally > want a constant stream of data. Depending on the size of the buffer > in your drive, you can interrupt the stream for as much as a second > or two. However, if some other process starts thrashing and the CDR > drive's buffer *is* exhausted, there is nothing more to write and > you're SOL, as that CD is now a coaster. > > This is why people make filesystems on their hard disk and then burn > it to CD. However, if the system is mostly idle, and you have a fast > disk, you shouldn't have too many problems backing up to CD. You may > want to consider sticking to tape though. Tapes hold what, 4 gigs? > CD-ROMS hold 650MB. tapes may be 4GB, but most of them are extremely slow compared to a CD-R. Even some of the fastest tape drives aren't as fast as a 4x CD-R (last time i checked). Tape drives are also a lot more expensive and the tapes are EXTREMELY expensive. CD-R disk can be found for $1 or less if you have a rebate. Tapes for my TR1 drive (old; never in use anymore) are $30 each...and i have 5 tapes for them. So it really comes down to how much money you have. > > Cheers, > > Andrew Bromage > > -- > Nathan Dorfman | E-mail: nathan@fcc.net > Frontline Communications | Front desk: 914-623-8553: > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message > -scott To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message