21 Jan
2010
21 Jan
'10
4:26 p.m.
Hi, all!
Once, I was dismantling very old very long dead rusty box, which once
ran some version of SCO UNIX.
And I've got a strange device I've seen nowhere else - floppy-attached
tape drive, labelled Irwin, model 285. Drive looks
OK visually, motor wiring is perfect, so I can't see why it won't work.
I tried to make it run with old and new versions of Linux, but failed.
Do anybody have any documentation
regarding this?
Also - how wide these devices were used? I've never met one before
while I can't say I have little IT experience.
All the best,
S.
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21 Jan
21 Jan
4:51 p.m.
Those type of drives used a floppy interface but didn't look like a
floppy. If I remember right, the seek signal was a data clock and the
seek direction signal was the out data. I don't remember the in data.
The other signals were ignored.
You sent command blocks to the tape drive by sending a series of seek
requests that caused the command block to be encoded on the seek/seek
direction pins. The you would toggle the seek pin and read the input
pin to read the response.
Brantley.
iPhone email
On Jan 21, 2010, at 5:26 AM, Sergey Lapin <slapinid(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi, all!
Once, I was dismantling very old very long dead rusty box, which once
ran some version of SCO UNIX.
And I've got a strange device I've seen nowhere else - floppy-attached
tape drive, labelled Irwin, model 285. Drive looks
OK visually, motor wiring is perfect, so I can't see why it won't
work.
I tried to make it run with old and new versions of Linux, but failed.
Do anybody have any documentation
regarding this?
Also - how wide these devices were used? I've never met one before
while I can't say I have little IT experience.
All the best,
S.
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5:19 p.m.
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:26:39 +0300
Sergey Lapin <slapinid(a)gmail.com> wrote:
And I've got a strange device I've seen
nowhere else - floppy-attached
tape drive, labelled Irwin, model 285.
[...]
Also - how wide these devices were used? I've
never met one before
while I can't say I have little IT experience.
Floppy tapes where quite common
consumer grade (i.e. cheap crap) backup
drives in the early 90'is. They just mimic a floppy drive to the
controler. But you need special software to actually use the drive.
They don't work like a big floppy.
Don't waste your time with this crap. Floppy streamers are sslllooowww
and unreliable. They are limited to the data rate of a floppy drive,
IIRC 500 kBit/s max. and the tapes need to be formated before use. They
have no "read after write" verify. So you need an extra verify run
after the backup was written. I.e. you need to run the whole tape three
times through the drive. This can take up to several hours.
The only reason to resurrect one of these drives is to read old tapes
with important data that would be lost otherwise.
--
tschüß,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
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5:32 p.m.
Quoting Jochen Kunz, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 12:19:17PM +0100 ..
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:26:39 +0300
Sergey Lapin <slapinid(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Exactly. Even at the best of times this was basically junk, these
days it is probably worse than junk. "SperrmÃŒll" ;-)
Wilko
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And I've got a strange device I've seen
nowhere else - floppy-attached
tape drive, labelled Irwin, model 285.
[...]
Also - how wide these devices were used?
I've never met one before
while I can't say I have little IT experience.
Floppy tapes where quite
common consumer grade (i.e. cheap crap) backup
drives in the early 90'is. They just mimic a floppy drive to the
controler. But you need special software to actually use the drive.
They don't work like a big floppy.
Don't waste your time with this crap. Floppy streamers are sslllooowww
and unreliable. They are limited to the data rate of a floppy drive,
IIRC 500 kBit/s max. and the tapes need to be formated before use. They
have no "read after write" verify. So you need an extra verify run
after the backup was written. I.e. you need to run the whole tape three
times through the drive. This can take up to several hours.
The only reason to resurrect one of these drives is to read old tapes
with important data that would be lost otherwise.
6:07 p.m.
On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 2:32 PM, Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
Quoting Jochen Kunz, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at
12:19:17PM +0100 ..
Ah, that's so bad, so I will really need to buy some vintage SCSI tape drive
to fullfill my backup needs. I see the reason why these devices are
nowhere to be found.
S.
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On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:26:39 +0300
Sergey Lapin <slapinid(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Exactly. Even at the best of times this was basically junk, these
days it is probably worse than junk. "SperrmÃŒll" ;-) And I've got a strange device I've seen
nowhere else - floppy-attached
tape drive, labelled Irwin, model 285.
[...]
Also - how wide these devices were used?
I've never met one before
while I can't say I have little IT experience.
Floppy tapes where quite
common consumer grade (i.e. cheap crap) backup
drives in the early 90'is. They just mimic a floppy drive to the
controler. But you need special software to actually use the drive.
They don't work like a big floppy.
Don't waste your time with this crap. Floppy streamers are sslllooowww
and unreliable. They are limited to the data rate of a floppy drive,
IIRC 500 kBit/s max. and the tapes need to be formated before use. They
have no "read after write" verify. So you need an extra verify run
after the backup was written. I.e. you need to run the whole tape three
times through the drive. This can take up to several hours.
The only reason to resurrect one of these drives is to read old tapes
with important data that would be lost otherwise. 
6:37 p.m.
In this day & age, why on earth would you want tape?
Hard disks, esp usb ones are so cheap! You can buy 1TB disks for around
$100 USD each.... and keep them in rotation.
Tapes break, they are SEQUENTIAL and SLOW.
I don't think I've backed up to tape in over 5+ years...
The floppy tapes really were terrible, I had a few and eventually they
become unusable... Not to mention they end up eating 100% of the cpu when
they do their thing, so the machine is unusable. And the horror stories I
have of how these tapes take HOURS to report some basic failure, but people
assume they have good backups....
It's really hard to tell people that have been 'backing up' for years that
because they didn't format the tape, they have nothing... Although it took
2-3 hours for the software to tell them that....
There is a fundamental reason you don't see these things anymore, not to
mention tapes just haven't been able to keep up with hard disk sizes...
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7:02 p.m.
Quoting Jason Stevens, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 07:37:41AM -0500 ..
In this day & age, why on earth would you want
tape?
Hard disks, esp usb ones are so cheap! You can buy 1TB disks for around
$100 USD each.... and keep them in rotation.
Tapes break, they are SEQUENTIAL and SLOW.
I don't think I've backed up to tape in over 5+ years...
The floppy tapes really were terrible, I had a few and eventually they
become unusable... Not to mention they end up eating 100% of the cpu when
they do their thing, so the machine is unusable. And the horror stories I
have of how these tapes take HOURS to report some basic failure, but people
assume they have good backups....
It's really hard to tell people that have been 'backing up' for years
that
because they didn't format the tape, they have nothing... Although it took
2-3 hours for the software to tell them that....
That concept is known under the acronym WORN. Write Once, Read Never.
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10:50 p.m.
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:02:19 +0100
Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
That concept is known under the acronym WORN. Write
Once, Read Never.
Once a friend said: A DAT backup drive is a winding /dev/null.
--
tschüß,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
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11:11 p.m.
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:07:07 +0300
Sergey Lapin <slapinid(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Ah, that's so bad, so I will really need to buy
some vintage SCSI
tape drive to fullfill my backup needs.
If you really want tape backup: Get a DLT
drive. This is the most
reliable tape technology I came across. Next to it are the big QIC
drives that use DC6xxx or DC9xxx media. (Don't confuse this with the
MiniQIC stuff that was used for floppy streamers.) This would be a
proper backup for an old Unix box. (DC600 tapes where a common
distribution media for Unix software in the pre-CDROM era.)
Avoid helical scan like DAT or Exabyte 8 mm.
Hmmm. Well. 9-track tape is even more reliable then DLT. But how much
data do you get on a 2400' tape at 6250 bpi? (Answer left to the reader
as an exercise. ;-) )
Or, as Jason mentioned: Consider disk backup on at least two redundant
disks. (Does not need to be RAID. Just copy all data to two indepentent
disks.)
Store at least one backup off site...
Forget CD-R and DVD-R.
--
tschüß,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
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11:37 p.m.
In message: <20100121181147.97ae525c.jkunz(a)unixag-kl.fh-kl.de>
Jochen Kunz <jkunz(a)unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> writes:
: Or, as Jason mentioned: Consider disk backup on at least two redundant
: disks. (Does not need to be RAID. Just copy all data to two indepentent
: disks.)
I've used this method for years, with all my dumps going to a primary
disk, and then rsync to a secondary one. I keep a copy of all my
level 0 dumps (which I do once or twice a year) forever, and then
prune the higher numbered dumps as they become obsolete.
The rsync allows me to recover more easily if a machine fails, I just
mount the backup partition off the backup machine...
Warner
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11:41 p.m.
On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 8:11 PM, Jochen Kunz <jkunz(a)unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> wrote:
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:07:07 +0300
Sergey Lapin <slapinid(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks a lot for all advices! Now I think I've got two problems now -
one is to implement backup
(which is unrelated here), and one, for fun, to make device working.
I've got drive and have just got
full vintage cabinet full of tapes to experiment on :) (since company
where I've got that box with a drive
decided to move all their old trash to local scrap and I talked them
into giving that tapes cabinet to me,
including contents. I just don't know what stuff is on these tapes,
but that in itself is intriguing :)
All the best,
S.
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Ah, that's so bad, so I will really need to
buy some vintage SCSI
tape drive to fullfill my backup needs.
If you really want tape backup: Get a DLT
drive. This is the most
reliable tape technology I came across. Next to it are the big QIC
drives that use DC6xxx or DC9xxx media. (Don't confuse this with the
MiniQIC stuff that was used for floppy streamers.) This would be a
proper backup for an old Unix box. (DC600 tapes where a common
distribution media for Unix software in the pre-CDROM era.)
Avoid helical scan like DAT or Exabyte 8 mm.
Hmmm. Well. 9-track tape is even more reliable then DLT. But how much
data do you get on a 2400' tape at 6250 bpi? (Answer left to the reader
as an exercise. ;-) )
Or, as Jason mentioned: Consider disk backup on at least two redundant
disks. (Does not need to be RAID. Just copy all data to two indepentent
disks.)
Store at least one backup off site...
Forget CD-R and DVD-R.
22 Jan
22 Jan
1 a.m.
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:41:10 +0300
Sergey Lapin <slapinid(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I just don't know what stuff is on these tapes,
but that in itself is intriguing
http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/hackethic.html
Especially section "New Hacker Ethic" clause
1. Above all else, do no harm
and more important
2. Protect Privacy
If the data on the tapes is not yours and not public, please respect
the privacy of other entities. Delete all data.
--
tschüß,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
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1:10 a.m.
On 1/21/10 11:00 AM, Jochen Kunz wrote:
If the data on the tapes is not yours and not public,
please respect
the privacy of other entities. Delete all data.
you forgot
"and future historians will damn you for doing so."
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1:36 a.m.
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:10:15 -0800
Al Kossow <aek(a)bitsavers.org> wrote:
Doesn't count.
Privacy does not end. Even dead individuals (entities)
have a right to be respected. Until the data is of historic interrest
it will be unreadable anyway. The only way out would be to read the
data and properly archive it, but never analyze it. (And as I
understand it the Sergey wants to analyze the data.)
Don't forget to add a Digital Rosetta Stone!
--
tschüß,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
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If the data on
the tapes is not yours and not public, please respect
the privacy of other entities. Delete all data.
you forgot
"and future historians will damn you for doing so."
1:41 a.m.
Quoting Al Kossow, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 11:10:15AM -0800 ..
On 1/21/10 11:00 AM, Jochen Kunz wrote:
Especially if it proves to be AG data
(AG= Anno Google, pre-Google ;-)
But if it is private data: can it..
Wilko
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If the data on the tapes is not yours and not
public, please respect
the privacy of other entities. Delete all data.
you forgot
"and future historians will damn you for doing so." 
1:45 a.m.
Jochen Kunz scripsit:
If the data on the tapes is not yours and not public,
please respect
the privacy of other entities. Delete all data.
I don't think that necessarily applies to historical data. The dead
(including dead corporations) have no privacy interest.
--
I am expressing my opinion. When my John Cowan
honorable and gallant friend is called, cowan(a)ccil.org
he will express his opinion. This is http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
the process which we call Debate. --Winston Churchill
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12:59 a.m.
Quoting Jochen Kunz, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 06:11:47PM +0100 ..
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:07:07 +0300
Sergey Lapin <slapinid(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Or LTO.
Ah, that's so bad, so I will really need to
buy some vintage SCSI
tape drive to fullfill my backup needs.
If you really want tape backup: Get a DLT
drive. This is the most reliable tape technology I came across. Next to it are
the big QIC
drives that use DC6xxx or DC9xxx media. (Don't confuse this with the
QIC is OK, but the capacity zukz..
Avoid helical scan like DAT or Exabyte 8 mm.
It says so on the DAT drives remember: DDS = DAT Drives *ck ;-)
Wilko
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1:48 a.m.
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:59:17 +0100
Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
QIC is OK, but the capacity zukz..
Depends. It
is perfectly suited as backup for a vintage Unix system
like a Sun 3 / 4 or SGI. (My SGI Personal IRIS 4D35 has a 250 MB QIC
drive for OS instales and backup.) Also note that the latest QIC in
its SLR / MLR incarnation had a capacity of 20 GB.
--
tschüß,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
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1:56 a.m.
Quoting Jochen Kunz, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 08:48:29PM +0100 ..
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:59:17 +0100
Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
Sun 3 had rather small QIC tapes, I think I had 60MB in mine?
QIC is OK, but the capacity zukz..
Depends. It is perfectly suited as backup for a vintage Unix system
like a Sun 3 / 4 or SGI. (My SGI Personal IRIS 4D35 has a 250 MB QIC drive for OS instales and backup.) Also note that the
latest QIC in
its SLR / MLR incarnation had a capacity of 20 GB.
I gave up on QIC when I had a 2GB version. Had a lot to do with the fact I
was given a DLT, I admit :)
Wilko
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1:58 a.m.
On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 08:56:19PM +0100, Wilko Bulte wrote:
Quoting Jochen Kunz, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at
08:48:29PM +0100 ..
Does anyone still use tape for personal backup? I've long since gone to
external usb drives that I shove in the gun safe (aka fire safe).
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitkeeper.com
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On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:59:17 +0100
Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
Sun 3 had rather small QIC tapes, I think I had 60MB in mine?
QIC is OK, but the capacity zukz..
Depends. It is perfectly suited as backup for a vintage Unix system
like a Sun 3 / 4 or SGI. (My SGI Personal IRIS 4D35 has a 250 MB QIC drive for OS instales and backup.) Also note that
the latest QIC in
its SLR / MLR incarnation had a capacity of 20 GB.
I gave up on QIC when I had a 2GB version. Had a lot to do with the fact I
was given a DLT, I admit :)
2 a.m.
Quoting Larry McVoy, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 11:58:18AM -0800 ..
On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 08:56:19PM +0100, Wilko Bulte
wrote:
LTO3 here :) But the disks are getting to be too big to fit a level 0 on a
single tape. I need to go and try to understand something like Amanda
backup s/w I think. Suggestions welcome.
Wilko
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Quoting Jochen Kunz, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21,
2010 at 08:48:29PM +0100 ..
Does anyone still use tape for personal backup? I've long since gone to
external usb drives that I shove in the gun safe (aka fire safe). On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:59:17 +0100
Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
Sun 3 had rather small QIC tapes, I think I had 60MB in mine?
QIC is OK, but the capacity zukz..
Depends. It is perfectly suited as backup for a vintage Unix system
like a Sun 3 / 4 or SGI. (My SGI Personal IRIS 4D35 has a 250 MB QIC drive for OS instales and backup.) Also note that
the latest QIC in
its SLR / MLR incarnation had a capacity of 20 GB.
I gave up on QIC when I had a 2GB version. Had a lot to do with the fact I
was given a DLT, I admit :)
2:11 a.m.
On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 09:00:34PM +0100, Wilko Bulte wrote:
Quoting Larry McVoy, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at
11:58:18AM -0800 ..
Dude, 800GB when there are 2TB drives? My suggestions are
a) don't put that much shit on a single drive, you are just asking for
headaches. Don't tell me you can't break it up, of course you can.
b) use drives. They are the new tape.
LTO3 800GB drive: $1200 plus $30/800GB tape.
WD 1TB drives: $90.
Just the LT03 drive itself gives you 13 1TB drives. Add one of those
USB external drive drop in connectors and use the drives just like tapes
except one hell of a lot faster, especially for restores.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitkeeper.com
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On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 08:56:19PM +0100, Wilko
Bulte wrote:
LTO3 here :) But the disks are getting to be too big to fit a level 0 on a
single tape. I need to go and try to understand something like Amanda
backup s/w I think. Suggestions welcome. Quoting Jochen Kunz, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21,
2010 at 08:48:29PM +0100 ..
Does anyone still use tape for personal backup? I've long since gone to
external usb drives that I shove in the gun safe (aka fire safe). On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:59:17 +0100
Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
> QIC is OK, but the capacity zukz..
Depends. It is perfectly suited as backup for a vintage Unix system
like a Sun 3 / 4 or SGI. (My SGI Personal IRIS 4D35 has a 250 MB QIC
Sun 3 had rather small QIC tapes, I think I had 60MB in mine?
drive for OS instales and backup.) Also note that
the latest QIC in
its SLR / MLR incarnation had a capacity of 20 GB.
I gave up on QIC when I had a 2GB version. Had a lot to do with the fact I
was given a DLT, I admit :)
2:26 a.m.
Just the LT03 drive itself gives you 13 1TB drives. Add one of those
USB external drive drop in connectors and use the drives just like tapes
except one hell of a lot faster, especially for restores.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com
http://www.bitkeeper.com
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Yeah that is the BIG thing there... I can tell you that having to fish out
a 5mb file in the middle of some 400GB worth of crap (valuable data) is a
ZILLION times better then the big bad days of tape... Esp with some software
that requires you to catalog the dammed things as the old backup server
invariably ran out of space...
I can't tell you how much better things have gotten with our clutzy users,
and the ability to just go and grab backups... or even NTFS v3's ability to
show prior revisions of files...
Or the other flip side, is when someone has some genius idea on our Oracle,
and managed to screw the whole thing up shutting down the organization....
It's really nice to say we'll be back up in 30 min as the drives copy the db
snapshots back in as quickly as the interface allows... right away!
Hell even when I was a kid the whole 'datacasette' thing honestly sucked.
sure it held more then a floppy but you'd waste 30-60 min on watching that
sucker sloooowly spin. Life is just too short for slow media.
I know I won't be missing sequential media anytime soon...
As for the privacy thing.....
It kind of reminds me of a bunch of the old BSD tapes that have people's
password hashes in there.. I've not run any cracking programs against them,
but at the same time they've been preserved by TUHS... Although it's my
understanding they shipped them out that way. I think one version even has
Kirk's history and some other stuff, but thankfully no mbox....
I wonder how historians go with this... it seems that 'people of interest'
anything goes, to the point we'll display so&so's comb and diary.... but
not
show the contents or make it a big deal to get at those contents...
Unlike say the old usenet archives where were in a public space...
Ok I'm rambling, I'll stop, but tapes died for a reason!
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2:41 a.m.
Quoting Jason Stevens, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 03:26:45PM -0500 ..
a 5mb file in the middle of some 400GB worth of crap
(valuable data) is a
ZILLION times better then the big bad days of tape... Esp with some software
that requires you to catalog the dammed things as the old backup server
invariably ran out of space...
I can't tell you how much better things have gotten with our clutzy users,
and the ability to just go and grab backups... or even NTFS v3's ability to
show prior revisions of files...
Run VMS :)
Hell even when I was a kid the whole
'datacasette' thing honestly sucked.
sure it held more then a floppy but you'd waste 30-60 min on watching that
sucker sloooowly spin. Life is just too short for slow media.
TK50 anyone? :)
anything goes, to the point we'll display
so&so's comb and diary.... but not
show the contents or make it a big deal to get at those contents...
Unlike say the old usenet archives where were in a public space...
Ok I'm rambling, I'll stop, but tapes died for a reason!
Well, for a lot of customers they are still very real. More for archiving
than for backups in some cases. I personally trust *good* tape technology
more than el-cheapo bit SATA drives (SATAn drives as one of my colleagues
likes to call them when they are causing grief).
What one does see quite often is some kind of virtual tape system with disk
backing storage that is the first stage backup. After some time the data is
offloaded from virtual tape storage onto real tapes for storing them in some
concrete vault. Obviously virtual tape gives you nice things like dedupe
etc.
Wilko
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2:44 a.m.
Ok I'm
rambling, I'll stop, but tapes died for a reason!
Well, for a lot of customers they are still very real. More for archiving
than for backups in some cases. I personally trust *good* tape technology
more than el-cheapo bit SATA drives (SATAn drives as one of my colleagues
likes to call them when they are causing grief).
3 a.m.
Quoting Larry McVoy, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 12:44:29PM -0800 ..
Disks are much higher volume and are forced to be reliable "enough".
Hehe... as someone who had to explain to a customer that 2500+ drives
needed replacing due to a manufacturing defect don't tell me anything about
"reliable enough".. Those were FC drives by the way.
Ok I'm rambling, I'll stop, but tapes died
for a reason!
Well, for a lot of customers they are still very real. More for archiving
than for backups in some cases. I personally trust *good* tape technology
more than el-cheapo bit SATA drives (SATAn drives as one of my colleagues
likes to call them when they are causing grief). If you aren't backing up with a crc then you are
doing it wrong.
True, but CRC does not buy you much if the media are fubared enough to be
largely unreadable.
If you want archive, write it to dvd or bluray and
pull them out and
rewrite every 5 years.
At least. Have multiple copies of the same data. Use different media
vendors for those copies. Added bonus for using different media writer
drives. Store under controlled conditions, esp temp &
moisture. DVD & BR are basically consumer electronics stuff, so use ample
caution.
Wilko
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3:01 a.m.
If you
aren't backing up with a crc then you are doing it wrong.
True, but CRC does not buy you much if the media are fubared enough to be
largely unreadable. 
3:36 a.m.
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010, Larry McVoy wrote:
We compare the CRC against previous backups. A table of
pathname, size, mtime, CRC
you compare all the ones that are the same and flag the ones that differ
only in CRC.
Sounds a lot like SFV files.
-uso.
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If you aren't backing up with a crc then you are
doing it wrong.
True, but CRC does not buy you much if the media are fubared enough to be
largely unreadable.
4:15 a.m.
On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 04:36:21PM -0500, lyricalnanoha wrote:
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010, Larry McVoy wrote:
We compare the CRC against previous backups. A table of
pathname, size, mtime, CRC
you compare all the ones that are the same and flag the ones that differ
only in CRC.
Sounds a lot like SFV files.
Yeah, except that it works when the files don't have the CRC's, i.e.,
it works for all files unchanged since the last backup.
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If you aren't backing up with a crc then you are
doing it wrong.
True, but CRC does not buy you much if the media are fubared enough to be
largely unreadable.
4:22 a.m.
In message: <20100121221523.GL9956(a)bitmover.com>
Larry McVoy <lm(a)bitmover.com> writes:
: On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 04:36:21PM -0500, lyricalnanoha wrote:
: > On Thu, 21 Jan 2010, Larry McVoy wrote:
: >
: >>>> If you aren't backing up with a crc then you are doing it wrong.
: >>>
: >>> True, but CRC does not buy you much if the media are fubared enough to be
: >>> largely unreadable.
: >>
: >> We compare the CRC against previous backups. A table of
: >>
: >> pathname, size, mtime, CRC
: >>
: >> you compare all the ones that are the same and flag the ones that differ
: >> only in CRC.
: >
: > Sounds a lot like SFV files.
:
: Yeah, except that it works when the files don't have the CRC's, i.e.,
: it works for all files unchanged since the last backup.
It is basically what rsync does over the network...
Warner
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3:14 p.m.
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:44:29 -0800
Larry McVoy <lm(a)bitmover.com> wrote:
Disks are much higher volume and are forced to be
reliable "enough".
That "enough" is the critical point. Check
the average read failure
rate of SATA drives. It is 1 per 10^14 bits for my ST3500320AS. The
drive has a capacity of 512 bytes/sect x 976773168 sectors. I.e. I will
get at least one read error when I try to read the entire disk 25
times. If I build a RAID out of 5 of this drives I only need 5 reads
through the RAID to get a read error and the RAID will degrate.
If you aren't backing up with a crc then you are
doing it wrong.
With a CRC you can detect bit rott. (Probably. Somthing like MD5 or
SHA-1 is mch better then a CRC.) But you can't repair the defect data.
So you want ECC...
--
tschüß,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
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3:34 p.m.
Quoting Jochen Kunz, who wrote on Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 10:14:24AM +0100 ..
I plan to stick ZFS on my storage.
Wilko
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On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:44:29 -0800
Larry McVoy <lm(a)bitmover.com> wrote:
recoverable read error rate I presume.
Disks are much higher volume and are forced to be
reliable "enough".
That "enough" is the critical point. Check
the average read failure
rate of SATA drives. It is 1 per 10^14 bits for my ST3500320AS. The drive has a capacity of 512 bytes/sect x 976773168
sectors. I.e. I will
get at least one read error when I try to read the entire disk 25
times. If I build a RAID out of 5 of this drives I only need 5 reads
through the RAID to get a read error and the RAID will degrate.
If you
aren't backing up with a crc then you are doing it wrong.
With a CRC you can
detect bit rott. (Probably. Somthing like MD5 or
SHA-1 is mch better then a CRC.) But you can't repair the defect data.
So you want ECC...
4:15 p.m.
On Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:34:09 +0100
Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
recoverable read error rate I presume.
No.
NON-recoverable read error rate: 1 per 10^14 bits.
And this is for light desktop use. Heavy IO on the disk may increase
failure rate. At least this is written in the technical data sheet of
the drive. WD drives are not that much better: 1 per 10^15 bits.
For sure: High end SAS drives have better numbers. But they cost much
more EUR / GB and require a SAS adapter...
--
tschüß,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
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4:46 p.m.
Quoting Jochen Kunz, who wrote on Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 11:15:57AM +0100 ..
On Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:34:09 +0100
Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
Hm.. ;)
recoverable read error rate I presume.
No.
NON-recoverable read error rate: 1 per 10^14 bits. And this is for light desktop use. Heavy IO on the
disk may increase
failure rate. At least this is written in the technical data sheet of
the drive. WD drives are not that much better: 1 per 10^15 bits.
For sure: High end SAS drives have better numbers. But they cost much
more EUR / GB and require a SAS adapter...
SAS is the heir to the parallel SCSI throne, and similarly (premium) priced
Wilko
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5:06 p.m.
On Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:46:38 +0100
Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
SAS is the heir to the parallel SCSI throne, and
similarly (premium) priced
Or in other words: Proper engineered, well tested and
reliable
technology that is carefully manufactured. All of this costs $$$ that
the average consumer can't / don't want to pay for.
--
tschüß,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
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5:12 p.m.
Quoting Jochen Kunz, who wrote on Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 12:06:50PM +0100 ..
On Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:46:38 +0100
Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
Indeed. I still run SCSI drives here :) Everything these days is cost
driven, and produced for a couple of $ in China. I happen to prefer
"Grundlichkeit" too but yeah..
Wilko
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SAS is the heir to the parallel SCSI throne, and
similarly (premium) priced
Or in other words: Proper engineered, well tested and
reliable
technology that is carefully manufactured. All of this costs $$$ that
the average consumer can't / don't want to pay for.
9:38 p.m.
On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 11:15:57AM +0100, Jochen Kunz wrote:
On Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:34:09 +0100
Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
You guys are funny. I've been doing backups for at least 15 years
and I can tell you story after story about tape failures that
happened to me personally (anyone remember the lovely exabyte 8200,
"fondly" remembered as the write-only device?). On the other hand,
disks work pretty well and when they fail, they fail in little
chunks and you can almost always get the rest of the data.
For the data I really care about, our digital photo collection, it's
all stored in BitKeeper's so-called binary asset management (BAM).
All the data is CRC-ed, it's all replicated, and if anything goes
bad the bad data can easily be replaced from any of the other
(populated) replicas. I periodically run "bk bam check" which
goes through all the data and checks the crc's and have yet to
see an error. Been doing that for years.
Tape. Bah. You can keep it, I'm OK with disk.
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recoverable read error rate I presume.
No.
NON-recoverable read error rate: 1 per 10^14 bits.
And this is for light desktop use. Heavy IO on the disk may increase
failure rate. At least this is written in the technical data sheet of
the drive. WD drives are not that much better: 1 per 10^15 bits.
10:52 p.m.
On Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:38:25 -0800
Larry McVoy <lm(a)bitmover.com> wrote:
You guys are funny. I've been doing backups for
at least 15 years
and I can tell you story after story about tape failures that
happened to me personally
Same here. What I wanted to say: Tapes fail. But disks
fail too. Be
prepared if your backup system fails, regarless of tape, disk, DVD, ...
(anyone remember the lovely exabyte 8200,
"fondly" remembered as the write-only device?).
Yes. Being helical scan
Exabytes are flaky. But once an EXB-8200 saved
my but. My main disk died and I could restore everything from my lovely
old Exabyte.
--
tschüß,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
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10:55 p.m.
Quoting Larry McVoy, who wrote on Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 07:38:25AM -0800 ..
On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 11:15:57AM +0100, Jochen Kunz
wrote:
We aim to please :)
On Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:34:09 +0100
Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
You guys are funny. I've been doing backups for at least 15 years recoverable read error rate I presume.
No.
NON-recoverable read error rate: 1 per 10^14 bits.
And this is for light desktop use. Heavy IO on the disk may increase
failure rate. At least this is written in the technical data sheet of
the drive. WD drives are not that much better: 1 per 10^15 bits. and I can tell you story after story about tape
failures that
happened to me personally (anyone remember the lovely exabyte 8200,
"fondly" remembered as the write-only device?). On the other hand,
I had an 8200.... :-P
disks work pretty well and when they fail, they fail
in little
chunks and you can almost always get the rest of the data.
Most often yes, unless you have production batch issues, like HDA
contamination etc. Can take out RAIDsets at a time, given that they
typically are built from the same production batch drives..
For the data I really care about, our digital photo
collection, it's
all stored in BitKeeper's so-called binary asset management (BAM).
All the data is CRC-ed, it's all replicated, and if anything goes
Replication does it, I agree!
bad the bad data can easily be replaced from any of
the other
(populated) replicas. I periodically run "bk bam check" which
goes through all the data and checks the crc's and have yet to
see an error. Been doing that for years.
Tape. Bah. You can keep it, I'm OK with disk.
Hihi..
Wilko
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2:46 a.m.
On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 3:41 PM, Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
Quoting Jason Stevens, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21, 2010
at 03:26:45PM -0500
..
We had a nice VAX 6000... but then someone tried something 'fancy' on it's
power supplies while it was ON. It nearly killed him, but it did kill the
vax...
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a 5mb file in the middle of some 400GB worth of
crap (valuable data) is a
ZILLION times better then the big bad days of tape... Esp with some
software
that requires you to catalog the dammed things as
the old backup server
invariably ran out of space...
I can't tell you how much better things have gotten with our clutzy
users,
and the ability to just go and grab backups... or
even NTFS v3's ability
to
show prior revisions of files...
Run VMS :) 
4:15 a.m.
On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 09:41:57PM +0100, Wilko Bulte wrote:
TK50 anyone? :)
A TK50 will load in a DLT8000.
the leader gets ripped out of the drive when attempting to eject it,
however.
one of these days I'll have to put together a machine to see if NetBSD's
wt(4) driver still works...
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4:57 a.m.
Quoting Aaron J. Grier, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 02:15:28PM -0800 ..
On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 09:41:57PM +0100, Wilko Bulte
wrote:
ISTR that they were readable up until a TZ86 (maybe a TZ87 too???)
TK50 anyone? :)
A TK50 will load in a DLT8000. the leader gets ripped out of the drive when
attempting to eject it,
however.
Nogood..
Wilko
one of these days I'll have to put together a
machine to see if NetBSD's
wt(4) driver still works...
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2:36 a.m.
Quoting Larry McVoy, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 12:11:25PM -0800 ..
On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 09:00:34PM +0100, Wilko Bulte
wrote:
I know... I've spent years and years in storage engineering and support.
I run RAID on my drives, no worries there ;)
Quoting Larry McVoy, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21,
2010 at 11:58:18AM -0800 ..
Dude, 800GB when there are 2TB drives? My suggestions are
a) don't put that much shit on a single drive, you are just asking for
headaches. Don't tell me you can't break it up, of course you can. On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 08:56:19PM +0100, Wilko
Bulte wrote:
LTO3 here :) But the disks are getting to be too big to fit a level 0 on a
single tape. I need to go and try to understand something like Amanda
backup s/w I think. Suggestions welcome. Quoting Jochen Kunz, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21,
2010 at 08:48:29PM +0100 ..
> On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:59:17 +0100
> Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
> > QIC is OK, but the capacity zukz..
> Depends. It is perfectly suited as backup for a vintage Unix system
> like a Sun 3 / 4 or SGI. (My SGI Personal IRIS 4D35 has a 250 MB QIC
Sun 3 had rather small QIC tapes, I think I had 60MB in mine?
> drive for OS instales and backup.) Also note that the latest QIC in
> its SLR / MLR incarnation had a capacity of 20 GB.
I gave up on QIC when I had a 2GB version. Had a lot to do with the fact I
was given a DLT, I admit :)
Does anyone still use tape for personal backup? I've long since gone to
external usb drives that I shove in the gun safe (aka fire safe). b) use drives. They are the new tape.
LTO3 800GB drive: $1200 plus $30/800GB tape.
WD 1TB drives: $90.
Just the LT03 drive itself gives you 13 1TB drives. Add one of those
USB external drive drop in connectors and use the drives just like tapes
except one hell of a lot faster, especially for restores.
Sure. I know. Big SATA drives are cheap over here as well, like 1.5T for
110 EURO or somesuch. I just happen to own a LTO3 and enough tapes already, so the
economics are not the issue. Just need to have a proper piece of open source
backup software that runs on FreeBSD.
Wilko
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2:44 a.m.
Sure. I know. Big SATA drives are cheap over here as
well, like 1.5T for
110 EURO or somesuch. I just happen to own a LTO3 and enough tapes already, so the
economics are not the issue. Just need to have a proper piece of open source
backup software that runs on FreeBSD.
Wilko
And what, precisely, is the problem with using dump?
It will span multiple tapes.
---corey
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3:45 a.m.
Quoting Corey Lindsly, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 12:44:49PM -0800 ..
Sure, I need to be a bit more specific: multiple fs dumps on one tape
(do-able with non-rewinding device of course), some sort of file & tape index to
quickly
find things etc. A bit like Legato Networker. Maybe Amanda can do this.
Ah well, needs a bit of investigating further.
Wilko
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Sure. I know. Big SATA drives are cheap over
here as well, like 1.5T for
110 EURO or somesuch. I just happen to own a LTO3 and enough tapes already, so the
economics are not the issue. Just need to have a proper piece of open source
backup software that runs on FreeBSD.
Wilko
And what, precisely, is the problem with using dump?
It will span multiple tapes. 
6:36 a.m.
New subject: Backup software (was: Irwin 285)
On Thursday, 21 January 2010 at 12:44:49 -0800, Corey Lindsly wrote:
dump is non-portable. In general, you can only restore to the same
kind of system as you write to.
Greg
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Sure. I know. Big SATA drives are cheap over
here as well, like
1.5T for 110 EURO or somesuch. I just happen to own a LTO3 and
enough tapes already, so the economics are not the issue. Just need
to have a proper piece of open source backup software that runs on
FreeBSD.
And what, precisely, is the problem with using dump?
It will span multiple tapes.
6:48 a.m.
New subject: Backup software (was: Irwin 285)
dump is non-portable. In general, you can only restore to the same
kind of system as you write to.
Greg
--
RedHat pulled a fast one on that.... RHEL 4 cannot read dumps created by
any RHEL4 that has *any* updates..... oh joy was that fun to find out on a
machine with no internet access.....
Me?
No, I'm not bitter about that experience.....
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29 Jan
29 Jan
2:27 a.m.
New subject: Backup software (was: Irwin 285)
On Thursday, 21 January 2010 at 12:44:49 -0800, Corey Lindsly wrote:
dump is non-portable. In general, you can only restore to the same
kind of system as you write to.
Greg
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Not entirely true... dump and restore in NetBSD seems to be portable
among NetBSD systems at least. I have personally restored to NetBSD/sparc
from NetBSD/alpha, a 64 bit to 32 bit conversion. I have also restored to
NetBSD/amd64 a NetBSD/i386 dump, which is basically the other way around.
I have also read NetBSD/sparc dumps on NetBSD/i386, and it worked fine,
that would have been a byte order conversion.
I don't know how far this goes, if it is just NetBSD, or something
inherent to all 4.4BSD derived systems.
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Sure. I know. Big SATA drives are cheap over
here as well, like
1.5T for 110 EURO or somesuch. I just happen to own a LTO3 and
enough tapes already, so the economics are not the issue. Just need
to have a proper piece of open source backup software that runs on
FreeBSD.
And what, precisely, is the problem with using dump?
It will span multiple tapes. 
12 Feb
12 Feb
11:03 p.m.
New subject: Backup software (was: Irwin 285)
On 28 Jan 2010, at 20:27, Brad Spencer wrote:
I don't know how far this goes, if it is just
NetBSD, or something
inherent to all 4.4BSD derived systems.
Sun's ufsdump (which is dump really) seems to be x86/SPARC portable at
least. I'm not sure it always was though.
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15 Feb
15 Feb
7:19 a.m.
New subject: dump(8) compatibility (was: Backup software (was: Irwin 285))
On Thursday, 28 January 2010 at 15:27:11 -0500, Brad Spencer wrote:
On Thursday, 21 January 2010 at 12:44:49 -0800, Corey Lindsly wrote:
dump is non-portable. In general, you can only restore to the same
kind of system as you write to.
Not entirely true... dump and restore in NetBSD seems to be portable
among NetBSD systems at least.
I don't know how far this goes, if it is just NetBSD, or something
inherent to all 4.4BSD derived systems.
I've just tried to list a FreeBSD 7.2 dump on NetBSD 5.0.1:
Extract directories from tape
Mangled directory: reclen less than DIRSIZ (12 < 16)
(many repetitions)
Mangled directory: reclen less than DIRSIZ (12 < 16)
. is not on the tape
Root directory is not on tape
abort? [yn] y
Interestingly, FreeBSD restore can understand the NetBSD dump. But
it's not even backwards compatible between major releases of FreeBSD
even, so this might be the same issue as with FreeBSD. Either way, I
don't think it's a good idea to count on it for NetBSD in the future.
Greg
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Sure. I know. Big SATA drives are cheap over
here as well, like
1.5T for 110 EURO or somesuch. I just happen to own a LTO3 and
enough tapes already, so the economics are not the issue. Just need
to have a proper piece of open source backup software that runs on
FreeBSD.
And what, precisely, is the problem with using dump?
It will span multiple tapes.
7:24 a.m.
New subject: dump(8) compatibility (was: Backup software (was: Irwin 285))
I'll never understand why software vendors think its a great idea to break
stuff like backup/restore programs....
It's going to be more & more of a PITA with that sarbanes oxley compliance
in the states... Hell we had NT 3.5 machines & a VAX in 2003... I'd dread
for anyone needing anything from those with any legal ramifications...
The VAX fried, and the old NT tapes were lost in a hurricane.....
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7:30 a.m.
New subject: dump(8) compatibility
In message: <20100215011914.GZ62998(a)dereel.lemis.com>
"Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog(a)lemis.com> writes:
: On Thursday, 28 January 2010 at 15:27:11 -0500, Brad Spencer wrote:
: >
: > On Thursday, 21 January 2010 at 12:44:49 -0800, Corey Lindsly wrote:
: >>
: >>> Sure. I know. Big SATA drives are cheap over here as well, like
: >>> 1.5T for 110 EURO or somesuch. I just happen to own a LTO3 and
: >>> enough tapes already, so the economics are not the issue. Just need
: >>> to have a proper piece of open source backup software that runs on
: >>> FreeBSD.
: >>
: >> And what, precisely, is the problem with using dump?
: >> It will span multiple tapes.
: >
: > dump is non-portable. In general, you can only restore to the same
: > kind of system as you write to.
: >
: > Not entirely true... dump and restore in NetBSD seems to be portable
: > among NetBSD systems at least.
: >
: > I don't know how far this goes, if it is just NetBSD, or something
: > inherent to all 4.4BSD derived systems.
:
: I've just tried to list a FreeBSD 7.2 dump on NetBSD 5.0.1:
:
: Extract directories from tape
: Mangled directory: reclen less than DIRSIZ (12 < 16)
: (many repetitions)
: Mangled directory: reclen less than DIRSIZ (12 < 16)
: . is not on the tape
: Root directory is not on tape
: abort? [yn] y
:
: Interestingly, FreeBSD restore can understand the NetBSD dump. But
: it's not even backwards compatible between major releases of FreeBSD
: even, so this might be the same issue as with FreeBSD. Either way, I
: don't think it's a good idea to count on it for NetBSD in the future.
Actually, dump *IS* compatible between major releases of FreeBSD. The
problem is that dump tapes from FreeBSD 1.x and 2.x (and 4.3BSD,
4.4BSD and early SunOS) are no longer restoreable because the code
that restored the old-style ufs1 layout was removed somewhere around
FreeBSD 4.x or 5.x.
It used to be the case that dump was completely interchangeable
between the different BSDs, but software drift has rendered that not
the case anymore.
Warner
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8:27 a.m.
New subject: dump(8) compatibility
It used to be the case that dump was completely
interchangeable
between the different BSDs, but software drift has rendered that not
the case anymore.
Which is why we (BitKeeper guys) don't even trust cpio/tar/etc. Wrote our
own, works everywhere including windows.
--
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11:05 a.m.
New subject: dump(8) compatibility
Tar and cpio at least have a standard, well understood format. Dump
was always only defined by the source.
Warner
On Feb 14, 2010, at 7:27 PM, Larry McVoy <lm(a)bitmover.com> wrote:
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It used to be
the case that dump was completely interchangeable
between the different BSDs, but software drift has rendered that not
the case anymore.
Which is why we (BitKeeper guys) don't even trust cpio/tar/etc.
Wrote our
own, works everywhere including windows.
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---
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11:18 a.m.
New subject: dump(8) compatibility
reminds me of the tar changes with the advent of gnutar... boy have I had a
lot of fun transporting files to find out when extracting it creates the
directories as files.....
On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 12:05 AM, Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
Tar and cpio at least have a standard, well understood
format. Dump was
always only defined by the source.
Warner
On Feb 14, 2010, at 7:27 PM, Larry McVoy <lm(a)bitmover.com> wrote:
It used to be the case that dump was completely interchangeable
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between
the different BSDs, but software drift has rendered that not
the case anymore.
Which is why we (BitKeeper guys) don't even trust cpio/tar/etc. Wrote our
own, works everywhere including windows.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com
http://www.bitkeeper.com
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22 Jan
22 Jan
2:33 a.m.
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:00:34 +0100
Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
But the disks are getting to be too big to fit a level
0 on a
single tape.
Depends on the data. My /home is just below 4 GB. This is the data I
really care about and I write it to DLT tape. There is a lot of other
stuff like the OS (NetBSD) itself and the source it is build from.
There are MP3s I created from my CDs... This is a large amount of data,
but that data can be recreated when it gets lost. So I don't care about
backup of it. I.e. in the end I have to backup only 4 GB of /home data.
Maybe I should get a second hard drive and create a software RAID1...
--
tschüß,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
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2:44 a.m.
Quoting Jochen Kunz, who wrote on Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 09:33:23PM +0100 ..
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:00:34 +0100
Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
Well, 4GB is tiny. I keep a lot of photographic images, high-res scans of
medium format film. At 120MB (or so) per lossless image things get ugly
quickly.
But the disks are getting to be too big to fit a
level 0 on a
single tape.
Depends on the data. My /home is just below 4 GB. This is the data I
really care about and I write it to DLT tape. There is a lot of other
stuff like the OS (NetBSD) itself and the source it is build from.
There are MP3s I created from my CDs... This is a large amount of data,
but that data can be recreated when it gets lost. So I don't care about
backup of it. I.e. in the end I have to backup only 4 GB of /home data. Maybe I should get a second hard drive and create a
software RAID1...
Money well invested in my book.
Wilko
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2:47 a.m.
Maybe I should
get a second hard drive and create a software RAID1...
Money well invested in my book.
3:23 p.m.
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:44:41 +0100
Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
I keep a lot of photographic images, high-res scans
of
medium format film.
1. I do my photographic work in my kitchen^W dark room. (DeVere
504 etc.)
2. Scans can be recreated from the original media.
p.s. Just trolling. ;-)
--
tschüß,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
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3:32 p.m.
Quoting Jochen Kunz, who wrote on Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 10:23:06AM +0100 ..
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:44:41 +0100
Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
Absolutely true, and I keep the films of course :)
3. I just hate scanning, takes too much time :)
I keep a lot of photographic images, high-res
scans of
medium format film.
1. I do my photographic work in my kitchen^W dark room.
(DeVere 504 etc.)
2. Scans can be recreated from the original media. p.s. Just trolling. ;-)
No worries
Wilko
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6:38 a.m.
New subject: Tape backups? (was: Irwin 285)
On Thursday, 21 January 2010 at 11:58:18 -0800, Larry McVoy wrote:
On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 08:56:19PM +0100, Wilko Bulte
wrote:
"Me too". I stopped using tape about 10 years ago.
Greg
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I gave up on QIC when I had a 2GB version. Had a
lot to do with the fact I
was given a DLT, I admit :)
Does anyone still use tape for personal backup? I've long since gone to
external usb drives that I shove in the gun safe (aka fire safe).
2:18 a.m.
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:56:19 +0100
Wilko Bulte <wb(a)freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
Sun 3 had rather small QIC tapes, I think I had 60MB
in mine?
Yes. But at least the SCSI drives are easy to replace with the 250 MB
version.
I gave up on QIC when I had a 2GB version. Had a lot
to do with the fact I
was given a DLT, I admit :)
Same here. I went from DC9120 to DLT-III.
--
tschüß,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
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21 Jan
21 Jan
6:05 p.m.
Sergey Lapin pisze:
Hi, all!
Once, I was dismantling very old very long dead rusty box, which once
ran some version of SCO UNIX.
And I've got a strange device I've seen nowhere else - floppy-attached
tape drive, labelled Irwin, model 285. Drive looks
OK visually, motor wiring is perfect, so I can't see why it won't work.
I tried to make it run with old and new versions of Linux, but failed.
Do anybody have any documentation
regarding this?
Also - how wide these devices were used? I've never met one before
while I can't say I have little IT experience.
All the best,
S.
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I have seen , I think 2 years ago, a company in California which still
offered these drives brand new and tapes for them.Try to google.
The only system I know, which supports these drives, is Coherent.
You can still find sources of the driver and eventually port it to SCO.
But probably the manufacturer of this drive offers drivers for SCO.
Andrzej
Andrzej
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6:12 p.m.
I have seen , I think 2 years ago, a company in California which still
offered these drives brand new and tapes for them.Try to google.
The only system I know, which supports these drives, is Coherent.
You can still find sources of the driver and eventually port it to SCO.
But probably the manufacturer of this drive offers drivers for SCO.
Actually, I don't need SCO that much, so I'm fine with Linux. Too bad
they removed ftape subsystem from recent kernels, but this drive
didn't work even for old ones. So I will probably need to port this
stuff to some MCU, so I will need some protocol knowledge,
so I will need to dig into some old sources somewhere. Or find
some known working software package which will work with this drive
and do digging with oscilloscope for protocol.
Thanks a lot!
S.
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5423
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5448
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63 comments
17 participants
participants (17)
-
Aaron J. Grier -
Al Kossow -
Andrzej Popielewicz -
Brad Spencer -
Brantley Coile -
corey＠lod.com -
Greg 'groggy' Lehey -
Jason Stevens -
Jochen Kunz -
John Cowan -
Larry McVoy -
lyricalnanoha -
M. Warner Losh -
Sergey Lapin -
Tim Bradshaw -
Warner Losh
-
Wilko Bulte