Data recovery emergency on a downed server... Help please!!

[Robert Brockway]

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003, Wil McGilvery wrote:

> I do not like using CD's because the storage is too small. Even DVD's
> are not quite big enough to completely back up a system. They are also
> cheap and you can still experience unreliability. Even the "good" cd's
> are still too unreliable for me.
>
> When I first got started I used dat tapes and sold some to customers.
> That was a big mistake. I was replacing the tape drive every year and
> once I had a new tape drive it was a crap shoot as to whether I could
> perform a restore or not from an old tape.

One of the biggest problems with DDS (and other) tapes is the inability to
restore except on the tape drive used to do that backup.  This is caused
by head misalignment on the original drive, and makes the idea of disaster
recovery a joke when you consider that in a real disaster the original
drive probably went up in smoke.

Anyone using tapes (particularly DDS) to backup important data[1] better
be testing restores on a _different_ tape drive.

[1] If you are troubled enough to back it up chances are it is important.

Rob

-- 
Robert Brockway
Senior Technical Consultant, OpenTrend Solutions Ltd.
Phone: 416-669-3073, Email: rbrockway-wgAaPJgzrDxH4x6Dk/4f9A at public.gmane.org, http://www.opentrend.net
OpenTrend Solutions: Reliable, secure solutions to real world problems.
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