On Wed, 12 Aug 2009, rorycl wrote: > An important aspect of the system is that the tapes should be readable > for 12 years, by other parties if necessary. From this point of view we > like the idea of providing a CD with each tape set of the software > needed to extract the contents
Judging from my experience with CD-Rs there is a high chance that the disc will become unreadable within 12 years unless kept in a cool, dark environment (on a shelf in an office isn't good enough) > together with a listing of the enclosed files in a UTF8 text file. We > will be required to audit each backup set by successfully extracting > files from tape. Will the tape technology still be available in 12 years? Again, based on past experience I'm pretty sure it won't be. Bacula allows backups to be migrated or copied between pools. One of the advantages of this is that it allows archival sets to be migrated to new storage technology relatively easily. Bacula also has options for hash-based verification of files. This allows you to not only extract a backup's contents, but to verify their integrity - that can then be done on a scheduled basis and if coupled with SMART monitoring of the tape drive (LTOs use smart to report error correction stats during tape run) this will give ample warning of impending tape doom. AB ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july _______________________________________________ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
