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Date:      Sat, 30 Jan 1999 19:49:49 +1000
From:      Robert Chalmers <robert@chalmers.com.au>
To:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Tape drive
Message-ID:  <36B2D5BD.40F8DB86@chalmers.com.au>
References:  <199901291501.KAA22170@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com> <19990129214304.10992.qmail@alpha.comkey.com.au>

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The solution I use is another machine on the network. I built up a spare
machine, ran a cable out to it, locked in its own little wall cabinet in a
location remote in the building from the main work area, and as it doesn't need
to be accessed very ofter - if ever - it is hard for me to get at, let alone
burgulars. If the place burns down, well I figure I'll have enough to worry
about anyway. But in that event I have a tape backup, and I take a copy about
once a month of the entire system.

1. So, regular backups to the HDD across the network, in the wee small hours.
2. Regular - not so frequent backups to a tape to store off site. Monthly.
Tapes take AGES to complete and require attention unless you have Bill Gates'
loot and can afford a carosel. Done monthly you should only need 12 tapes for
the year.


If you don't have a network, its easy to make one, and scrounge up an old
Adaptec controller, buy a couple of  big HDDs, cheaper than tapes these days
and stuff them into an old 486, or pentium. Cable it out to the outside shed.

If you live in the US where 128K ISDN lines are cheaper than tapes here in
Australia, set up an offsite server and backup across a direct link. Really
safe.

Cheers
Bob

Greg Black wrote:

> > > For daily backups, you might consider a small number of large
> > > IDE drives.  They'll be fractionally more expensive in the short term,
> > > but cheaper in the long run, and they'll certainly back up faster.
> >
> > The problem I have with this solution is that it seems that you are
> > putting all your eggs in one basket. If that backup fails
> > catastrophically, you lose _all_ your backups at once. Seems that you
> > would have to backup your backups occasionally. So, you're still stuck
> > with doing tapes or some other media for the backup^2.
>
> Indeed -- when the machine catches fire and the "backup" disks

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