Very Computer

The state of tapes is lagging far behind disk, if I was more confident
in changing ATAPI disk drives without rebooting I would go that way.
However, I just have a better feeling about tape or DVD, in terms of
being able to read them on other systems.

--

  His first management concern is not solving the problem, but covering
his ass. If he lived in the middle ages he'd wear his codpiece backward.

Another thing: I would not use DVDs yet --- tapes have greater capacity
(AFAIK), and are quite a bit more reliable.

I really can't say what type of tape drive you should get; I would need to
know the size of your system(s).

--

P(4.2.2) + "Skylar DXLIX" DMPo L:36 DL:2500' A++ R+++ Sp w:Stormbringer
A(JLE)*/P*/Z/J64/Ad L/O H+ D+ c f-/f PV+ s TT- d++/d+ P++ M/M+
C- S++ I+/I++ So B+ ac GHB++ SQ++ RQ+ V+ F:JLE F: Possessors strong again

I'm setting up a web-server at my company. (going to containg a fair amount
of data)
And now I have started to look around for backup options... And with that,
startet to think a little about why you need backup.

Of course you want some way of restoring data/software if something goes
wrong, you don't need a tape for just a regular HD crash. Just run a raid
with mirroring for that. So why would you need a tape. If the house with the
server burns down to the ground, it would be a good thing if you have a
complete backup of everything at -another- location. I've heard of
situations where the tapes were stored in the same building :)
But if the house burn down, you'll still need the hardware to read the date
you stored on the tape. So you must get new hardware for the server, then a
new tape-streamer and then you can restore your system.

What I'm thinking of is putting in a raid on the server. Then once a month
I'll do a disk clone with Norton Ghost, to a seperate HD which I store
safely at another location. After every software change (not db or data
update) I'll burn a CD with the source code + program code which we have
developed in-house.
And finally, I've heard about a program/ability to do some kind of sync from
one linux box to another. So I'll have a twin server at another place which
will be kept updated with all the changes at the original server once every
night. I know about several ways to do this, but I'm going to checkout how
this sync feature works, before I decide.
This will let me have our site back online in a day, at most. (might have to
reroute ip or change dns entry if the house burned down) For hardware
failure/disk crash it will only be a matter of either switching HDs or
moving the other twin server from the second location. Estimate, an hour or
two.

Cloning with Norton Ghost works great. I just tried it out with taking a
copy of the server HD, taking it with me to one of my home PC's, installing
it there as master drive and it booted right off of it :)
This works as long as you are able to store all your data on one disk.

I'm just posting this as an alternative, and I'm open for
suggestions/critic.

Erlend Stromsvik

--

P(4.2.2) + "Skylar DXLIX" DMPo L:36 DL:2500' A++ R+++ Sp w:Stormbringer
A(JLE)*/P*/Z/J64/Ad L/O H+ D+ c f-/f PV+ s TT- d++/d+ P++ M/M+
C- S++ I+/I++ So B+ ac GHB++ SQ++ RQ+ V+ F:JLE F: Possessors strong again