On Jan 7, 2008 7:22 AM, knitti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 1/4/08, Nick Guenther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > How would you verify the whole disk is readable? And if it's all > > readable, how do you ensure the data is still the same pattern you put > > on before? > > the posting von hannah shows what to do. Ths big picture is this: > Backup (and/or archiving) is not fire-and-forget. You have to know how > long you want to store this data to choose the right technology and > media. And you have to have a process to verify that your data is good > after this time. If you want backups for five years, and your life/business > won't come to an end should you lose some data in spite having backed > up, use DVDs or HDDs, verify after backup and just store the media. > For more than five years and more-or-less critical data, use tape and > verify every x time. If you approach ten years and up, you have to > know how you get hardware to read the tapes... > > At least the LTO spec states that drives of the *current* generation > _have to_ read and write also tapes one generation older and > read tapes which are two generations older. So if you have LTO-2 > tapes around, you will be able to read them with LTO-4 drives (which > should be checked, but does actually work in this case). > > Some companies and universities with huge archives spend > large sums just to copy their archived data to the newest technology > every couple of years.
Ah... it's the (http://www.)longnow(.org/). An unsettling concept, that. -Nick
