On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 10:19:56 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>> Experience.  Do you really think you can rewrite a tape 10,000 times?
> 
> Well, most of the tapes we own were put into service long before I
> joined the company, and they're still going strong. (Now and then we
> have a tape go dud and I replace it.) That's plenty long enough for
> me...

From my own experience, verify your tapes.  Seriously, you may not be 
getting errors on the tape during backup, but restoring them might be a 
problem if they've worn out.  I got bitten by that about 10 years ago (so 
maybe it's better now).  Remember the job I got suspended from for a week 
that I told you about?  That was why - the backups were no good, even 
though there was no indication during backup *or* verification that there 
was a problem.  But when I tried to actually restore them, the tapes 
couldn't be read.

I suspect the verification was some sort of drive-based checksum that 
came back rather than a real verification of data bit-by-bit.

Jim

Post a reply to this message