Invisible wrote:
> scott wrote:
>>> No, the limitation I'm running into now is space, not time.
>>
>> Buy some bigger tapes then, or more of the current ones?
> 
> DDS only goes up to a maximum of 80 GB. My server holds 103 GB. Time to 
> move to a different tape technology - but which one? There are many to 
> choose from.
> 

I'm backing up 180 GB at the moment

The storage space for data is 250GB.

The backup space available is 250GB - but not everything in the data is 
backed up.

Backups take 2.5 hours to run at the moment.


Tom

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Invisible wrote:
> DDS only goes up to a maximum of 80 GB. My server holds 103 GB. 

Sorry. Something looks wrong in these numbers. 103 GB? You don't mean 
103T?  I can't even go to the store and buy a hard drive that small, 
unless it's a laptop hard drive. You could mirror the whole drive every 
day of the week for about $500.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

Post a reply to this message

>> DDS only goes up to a maximum of 80 GB. My server holds 103 GB. 
> 
> Sorry. Something looks wrong in these numbers. 103 GB? You don't mean 
> 103T?  I can't even go to the store and buy a hard drive that small, 
> unless it's a laptop hard drive. You could mirror the whole drive every 
> day of the week for about $500.

Yes, 103 GB. That's 4 drives holding 36 GB each in a RAID-5 array. 
Hence, effectively 3 x 36 GB. (Windoze reports it as 103 GB. I guess the 
drives aren't exactly 36.0 GB or something.)

Given that we have 103 GB and it's about 20% full so far, what in the 
name of God would we need 103,000 GB for? And last time I checked, SCSI 
drives are [still] damn expensive. Sure, you could probably get a 300 GB 
*SATA* drive for £100 or something, but SCSI? Good luck!

I guess we *could* back up to a hard drive. But I'm not really that keen 
on the idea. We would have to shut the server down to connect the drive, 
start it back up again, format the drive, copy all the data, somehow 
verify the data, shut the server down, disconnect the drive, put it 
somewhere safe, and start up the server again. Every single night. No 
thanks...

I don't have any hard evidence to back this up, but isn't power-on the 
most common time for a HD to fail? (Rather like lightbulbs.) Wouldn't 
the constant cycling tend to wear them down? Hmm, mind you, I guess it's 
no worse than all the other PCs here that get switched on each morning...

The other small problem is that 30 harddrives presumably take up 
slightly more space than 30 DDS tapes. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> What do you use to back up data? I'm not talking about permanent 
>> archival, I'm talking about rolling backups so that if a small 
>> meteorite hits your server room, you don't loose all the data you're 
>> working on.
> 
> At work? LTO-II with robotic library capable of 14 tapes.

Yeah, looks like we'll be getting an LTO-I robotic library (8 tapes?)

I guess I should go look up prices for LTO tapes...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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> Given that we have 103 GB and it's about 20% full so far,

So your 80GB tapes should be fine for a while yet then???

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scott wrote:
>> Given that we have 103 GB and it's about 20% full so far,
> 
> So your 80GB tapes should be fine for a while yet then???

...except that my tapes are 36 GB?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> So your 80GB tapes should be fine for a while yet then???
>
> ...except that my tapes are 36 GB?

Oh sorry I thought you meant the maximum size tapes your system could take 
was 80 GB.

Even so, if you're using 20GB of data, surely that fits onto a 36 GB tape ok 
with plenty of room for expansion over the next months/years?

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
>>> DDS only goes up to a maximum of 80 GB. My server holds 103 GB. 
>>
> 
> I guess we *could* back up to a hard drive. But I'm not really that keen 
> on the idea. We would have to shut the server down to connect the drive, 
> start it back up again, format the drive, copy all the data, somehow 
> verify the data, shut the server down, disconnect the drive, put it 
> somewhere safe, and start up the server again. Every single night. No 
> thanks...
> 
> I don't have any hard evidence to back this up, but isn't power-on the 
> most common time for a HD to fail? (Rather like lightbulbs.) Wouldn't 
> the constant cycling tend to wear them down? Hmm, mind you, I guess it's 
> no worse than all the other PCs here that get switched on each morning...
> 

This is a pretty narrow view of what can be done with a HD for a backup.
USB, Firewire, hot-swap bays, hot-swap raid enclosures, etc....
All of which don't present the problem that you describe.


Backing up to a HD is not ideal for most situations.
I'm not going to try to persuade you to do it.

It comes with its own problems that other media doesn't have.
It isn't mainstream.


> The other small problem is that 30 harddrives presumably take up 
> slightly more space than 30 DDS tapes. ;-)
> 

That depends on your backup strategy.  If it requires 30 separate media, 
then yes, storage space can be a premium.  Just tuck one or two near QA 
girls desk and say 'hi' each time you get one ;-)



Tom

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Tom Austin wrote:

>> The other small problem is that 30 harddrives presumably take up 
>> slightly more space than 30 DDS tapes. ;-)
>>
> 
> That depends on your backup strategy.  If it requires 30 separate media, 
> then yes, storage space can be a premium.  Just tuck one or two near QA 
> girls desk and say 'hi' each time you get one ;-)

Right. I'm sold!

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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scott wrote:
>>> So your 80GB tapes should be fine for a while yet then???
>>
>> ...except that my tapes are 36 GB?
> 
> Oh sorry I thought you meant the maximum size tapes your system could 
> take was 80 GB.

Not quite, no. The maximum tape size our system can take is 36 GB. The 
next model up will handle 80 GB, and there *is* no higher model after 
that. So I think we need to move to another technology.

> Even so, if you're using 20GB of data, surely that fits onto a 36 GB 
> tape ok with plenty of room for expansion over the next months/years?

And in other news, I CAN'T DO MENTAL ARITHMETIC! >_<

(I have 59 GB of data to back up. Obviously this doesn't fit on a 36 GB 
tape. Although to the system's credit, with the compression it does it 
actually *almost* fits... But when we get to the point where we're using 
nearly 103 GB of storage, we don't want to be using 36 GB or even 80 GB 
tapes, ideally.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible wrote:
> I guess we *could* back up to a hard drive. But I'm not really that keen 
> on the idea. We would have to shut the server down to connect the drive, 

USB.  Or, apparently, something called "eSata" now?

Oh, is your machine back in the prehistoric pre-USB era still? So buy a 
$200 desktop machine that *does* have USB, put XP on it or something, 
and back it up over the network.

> start it back up again, format the drive,

Format it once, yes.

> copy all the data, somehow verify the data, 

They call that "the backup program".

> I don't have any hard evidence to back this up, but isn't power-on the 
> most common time for a HD to fail? (Rather like lightbulbs.) Wouldn't 
> the constant cycling tend to wear them down?

Once a day is "constant"?  Besides, it's your backup drive. Buy two. 
Switch back and forth between them. When one fails, buy another.

> The other small problem is that 30 harddrives presumably take up 
> slightly more space than 30 DDS tapes. ;-)

Well, yeah, but they also last a lot longer, I expect.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Invisible wrote:
> Tom Austin wrote:
> 
>>> The other small problem is that 30 harddrives presumably take up 
>>> slightly more space than 30 DDS tapes. ;-)
>>>
>>
>> That depends on your backup strategy.  If it requires 30 separate 
>> media, then yes, storage space can be a premium.  Just tuck one or two 
>> near QA girls desk and say 'hi' each time you get one ;-)
> 
> Right. I'm sold!
> 

you can also do this with the tapes - your shelf just can't hold them all.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

>> The other small problem is that 30 harddrives presumably take up 
>> slightly more space than 30 DDS tapes. ;-)
> 
> Well, yeah, but they also last a lot longer, I expect.
> 

I've been using HD backups for about 5 years now - never had a failure.
That is not to say it can happen tomorrow - they are more *fragile*.
We do keep them in a padded case for off-site storage - never leave them 
in a hot or cold car, etc....


Tom

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Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> I guess we *could* back up to a hard drive. But I'm not really that 
>> keen on the idea. We would have to shut the server down to connect the 
>> drive, 
> 
> USB.  Or, apparently, something called "eSata" now?

I'm just not keen on attaching and removing bits of hardware on a 
server. Our QA guys probably wouldn't like it either.

>> start it back up again, format the drive,
> 
> Format it once, yes.

I would anticipate that formatting the drive is quite a lot faster than 
trying to actually delete the existing files on it.

>> The other small problem is that 30 harddrives presumably take up 
>> slightly more space than 30 DDS tapes. ;-)
> 
> Well, yeah, but they also last a lot longer, I expect.

Really? What on earth makes you think that a highly complex and fragile 
device like a HD will last longer than a simple lump of tape?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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> I guess I should go look up prices for LTO tapes...

$20-$40 each in varying lengths
$40 x 8 = $320 ~ 800 GB
@ 15 MBS (LTO-1)
~ 15 hours to fill

LaCie D2 Quadra HD = $560 ~ 1 TB
@ 3 GBS (eSATA)
~ 6 minutes to fill

LaCie Mobile HD = $139 ~ 250 GB
@ 20-25 MBS (USB 2) (driver free, USB powered)
~ 3 hours 30 minutes to fill

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 19 Mar 2008 23:39:22 +0100, Tim Attwood <tim### [at] comcastnet> 
 

wrote:
> LaCie D2 Quadra HD = $560 ~ 1 TB
> @ 3 GBS (eSATA)
> ~ 6 minutes to fill

SATA/300 is 3 Gb/s, not 3 GB/s. There is also a 8/10 encoding to take in
to  

account, which puts the actual maximum transfer speed to 300 MB/s. No  

actual drive can deliver a sustained write speed that high though; a  

really fast drive might approach 100 MB/s. At that speed it would take  

roughly three hours to fill the disk, assuming that the source disks can
  

deliver data at the same speed and the CPU can keep up.



-- 

FE

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> I'm just not keen on attaching and removing bits of hardware on a 
> server. Our QA guys probably wouldn't like it either.

That's what USB is *for*. But as I say, plug the backup machine into the 
net next to the server, and back up over the network. Works fine. It's 
how I do it.

> I would anticipate that formatting the drive is quite a lot faster than 
> trying to actually delete the existing files on it.

Oh, if you want to delete everything, I suppose. If you're only putting 
one backup file on there, it's probably equally fast.

> Really? What on earth makes you think that a highly complex and fragile 
> device like a HD will last longer than a simple lump of tape?

Experience.  Do you really think you can rewrite a tape 10,000 times?

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

Post a reply to this message

>> I'm just not keen on attaching and removing bits of hardware on a 
>> server. Our QA guys probably wouldn't like it either.
> 
> That's what USB is *for*.

Maybe I'm just twitchy because of that scanner I just installed. Some 
guy bought a cheap-looking business card scanner. It comes with a 
hackish-looking program that lets you press a button and scan a business 
card and insert it into your Outlook contacts list. (Huh? I don't get 
how that's physically possible...)

On one PC, it puts the PC into an infinite loop where the "Found New 
Hardware" wizard keeps popping up and won't **** off. The hardware also 
won't work. On other PC, every time you plug it in it *demands* the 
product installation CD. Won't do anything without it. And often doesn't 
work the first time. You gotta go through several iterations of 
uninstalling and reinstalling the driver, rebooting the PC, and 
performing voodoo chants over a burning candle. And then, eventually, it 
works. And it keeps working - until the next time you unplug it.

I have no idea WTF all that is about! But doing that kind of crap with a 
server just makes me damn nervous...

> But as I say, plug the backup machine into the 
> net next to the server, and back up over the network. Works fine. It's 
> how I do it.

It has a flavour...

>> I would anticipate that formatting the drive is quite a lot faster 
>> than trying to actually delete the existing files on it.
> 
> Oh, if you want to delete everything, I suppose. If you're only putting 
> one backup file on there, it's probably equally fast.

Our backup software has a "backup to folder" option, but it works like a 
file copy. IME, deleting millions of files isn't "fast"...

>> Really? What on earth makes you think that a highly complex and 
>> fragile device like a HD will last longer than a simple lump of tape?
> 
> 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...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>SATA/300 is 3 Gb/s, not 3 GB/s. There is also a 8/10 encoding to take into 
>account, which puts the actual maximum transfer speed to 300 MB/s. No 
>actual drive can deliver a sustained write speed that high though; a 
>really fast drive might approach 100 MB/s. At that speed it would take 
>roughly three hours to fill the disk, assuming that the source disks can 
>deliver data at the same speed and the CPU can keep up.

Ah, I misread something, still that's at least 150 MB/s, faster
than the HD will go.

They do make faster tape drives with more storage, but it
sounds like Andy's company might as well re-use the old
hardware. I bet it's one of those machines you could dig
out of a building collapse and still recover the data. And
if they compress the data they probably can fit a 160 GB
backup onto a single tape.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> I have no idea WTF all that is about! 

I don't know. Let me suggest that a hard drive isn't going to be as 
problematic. :-)

>> But as I say, plug the backup machine into the net next to the server, 
>> and back up over the network. Works fine. It's how I do it.
> 
> It has a flavour...

That must be some British expression I'm not familiar with...

> Our backup software has a "backup to folder" option, but it works like a 
> file copy. IME, deleting millions of files isn't "fast"...

Odd. No, deleting millions of files isn't fast. What's wrong with the 
backup software that comes with Windows?

But as you say, partition the disk so you can use one partition per 
backup, and format over the drive each time.

You're much luckier than I was with tapes. Probably because your company 
is buying high-quality tapes.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> It has a flavour...
> 
> That must be some British expression I'm not familiar with...

That's a lolcats expression, with British spelling.

see: http://www.icanhascheezburger.com

-- 
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.digitalartsuk.com

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GFA dpu- s: a?-- C++(++++) U P? L E--- W++(+++)>$
N++ o? K- w(+) O? M-(--) V? PS+(+++) PE(--) Y(--)
PGP-(--) t* 5++>+++++ X+ R* tv+ b++(+++) DI
D++(---) G(++) e*>++ h+ !r--- !y--
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

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On Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:43:43 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> What do you use to back up data?

Backup Exec is popular.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:09:41 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> scott wrote:
>>> No, the limitation I'm running into now is space, not time.
>> 
>> Buy some bigger tapes then, or more of the current ones?
> 
> DDS only goes up to a maximum of 80 GB. My server holds 103 GB. Time to
> move to a different tape technology - but which one? There are many to
> choose from.

Modern AIT drives are quite popular.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 19 Mar 2008 09:57:35 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> I guess we *could* back up to a hard drive. But I'm not really that keen
> on the idea. We would have to shut the server down to connect the drive,
> start it back up again, format the drive, copy all the data, somehow
> verify the data, shut the server down, disconnect the drive, put it
> somewhere safe, and start up the server again. Every single night. No
> thanks...

Mirroring - or connect devices to a SAN and mirror across multiple SAN 
devices.

Even iSCSI devices being mirrored would give you some real-time 
recovery.  No need to connect/disconnect.  Heck, for my server here at 
home, I run a shell script to dump the contents of important directories 
on the internal drive to an external 1 TB USB device.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:34:22 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> Not quite, no. The maximum tape size our system can take is 36 GB. The
> next model up will handle 80 GB, and there *is* no higher model after
> that. So I think we need to move to another technology.

Or a drive with a tape autoloader.  I know Compaq used to sell something 
like this for DDS2 DAT tapes (I've got one such device in my basement, in 
fact - pity DAT drive technology is poor at best for backups, I burned 
the heads out as I was testing a version of Arcserve years ago).

Jim

Post a reply to this message

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

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On Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:10:27 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> Yah, I was right. They're sending us an LTO-1 robotic library.

This is a good idea.

Jim

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On Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:40:28 +0000, Phil Cook wrote:

> And lo on Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:10:27 -0000, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> did
> spake, saying:
> 
>> Invisible wrote:
>>
>>> [I imagine this one is going to be dictated to me by HQ, but I'm
>>> curios...]
>>
>> Yah, I was right. They're sending us an LTO-1 robotic library.
> 
> That's a shame I thought they were going to suggest using 5 (or 7) hot
> swap drives and mirroring them each day before archiving them off to
> tape.
> 
> It all depends on what level of back-up you require. Heh my favourite is
> a company that used the grandfather/father/son system of backups, but
> reused the tapes. So Day 1: GF, Day 2: F, Day 3: S, Day 4: GF etc. I'm
> sure you can all see the problem.

Palindrome?

That's one package that used GFS backup strategies - it can work, of 
course, as long as your tape rotation is appropriate to retaining the 
full backups.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

And lo on Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:42:52 -0000, Jim Henderson  
<nos### [at] nospamcom> did spake, saying:

> On Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:40:28 +0000, Phil Cook wrote:
>
>> It all depends on what level of back-up you require. Heh my favourite is
>> a company that used the grandfather/father/son system of backups, but
>> reused the tapes. So Day 1: GF, Day 2: F, Day 3: S, Day 4: GF etc. I'm
>> sure you can all see the problem.
>
> Palindrome?

I don't recall.

> That's one package that used GFS backup strategies - it can work, of
> course, as long as your tape rotation is appropriate to retaining the
> full backups.

And that of course was the problem, if on day 4 the tape got screwed  
they'd have no full backup until they managed another backup. It never  
occurred to them if the server failed between those two points they'd have  
no full backup available.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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Jim Henderson wrote:

> From my own experience, verify your tapes.

We do. On every backup run. And to this day, I have never, ever had a 
problem restoring something that the backup software said was OK.

Indeed, if the tape is wearing out, I usually get an error message 
before the verify phase even begins. (Not sure how it manages that, but 
it often reports a CRC error...)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:43:43 +0000, Invisible wrote:
> 
>> What do you use to back up data?
> 
> Backup Exec is popular.

Not with me it isn't. But hey, that's what we have, so...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 11:08:37 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
>> From my own experience, verify your tapes.
> 
> We do. On every backup run. And to this day, I have never, ever had a
> problem restoring something that the backup software said was OK.

Do you do a checksum-based verification, or a compare-to-disk 
verification?

> Indeed, if the tape is wearing out, I usually get an error message
> before the verify phase even begins. (Not sure how it manages that, but
> it often reports a CRC error...)

I imagine that even without a verify, your software checks during the 
backup process to make sure it was written properly.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:06:42 +0000, Phil Cook wrote:

> And lo on Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:42:52 -0000, Jim Henderson
> <nos### [at] nospamcom> did spake, saying:
> 
>> On Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:40:28 +0000, Phil Cook wrote:
>>
>>> It all depends on what level of back-up you require. Heh my favourite
>>> is a company that used the grandfather/father/son system of backups,
>>> but reused the tapes. So Day 1: GF, Day 2: F, Day 3: S, Day 4: GF etc.
>>> I'm sure you can all see the problem.
>>
>> Palindrome?
> 
> I don't recall.

I recall from my NetWare 4 days that it was one of a very few that used 
GFS style backups - which are/were more popular on mainframe systems.

>> That's one package that used GFS backup strategies - it can work, of
>> course, as long as your tape rotation is appropriate to retaining the
>> full backups.
> 
> And that of course was the problem, if on day 4 the tape got screwed
> they'd have no full backup until they managed another backup. It never
> occurred to them if the server failed between those two points they'd
> have no full backup available.

Ouch.  That's gotta hurt.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 11:09:58 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:43:43 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>> 
>>> What do you use to back up data?
>> 
>> Backup Exec is popular.
> 
> Not with me it isn't. But hey, that's what we have, so...

What problems do you have with it?  I know a guy in your area who used to 
work in BE support (he's now out of the business, but I still may have a 
few contacts inside Veritas - I think now a part of EMC, isn't it?)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

And lo on Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:01:57 -0000, Jim Henderson  
<nos### [at] nospamcom> did spake, saying:

> On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:06:42 +0000, Phil Cook wrote:
>
>> And lo on Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:42:52 -0000, Jim Henderson
>> <nos### [at] nospamcom> did spake, saying:
>>
>>> On Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:40:28 +0000, Phil Cook wrote:
>>>
>>>> It all depends on what level of back-up you require. Heh my favourite
>>>> is a company that used the grandfather/father/son system of backups,
>>>> but reused the tapes. So Day 1: GF, Day 2: F, Day 3: S, Day 4: GF etc.
>>>> I'm sure you can all see the problem.
>>>
>>> Palindrome?
>>
>> I don't recall.
>
> I recall from my NetWare 4 days that it was one of a very few that used
> GFS style backups - which are/were more popular on mainframe systems.

Might have been Arcserve, rings bells.

>>> That's one package that used GFS backup strategies - it can work, of
>>> course, as long as your tape rotation is appropriate to retaining the
>>> full backups.
>>
>> And that of course was the problem, if on day 4 the tape got screwed
>> they'd have no full backup until they managed another backup. It never
>> occurred to them if the server failed between those two points they'd
>> have no full backup available.
>
> Ouch.  That's gotta hurt.

They were lucky in that it had never happened, the only 'problem' they had  
was the rolling restore window. The users had got into the habit of  
renaming files etc. out to ensure they wouldn't get overwritten before the  
archived monthly tape (yes they did at least have one of those) the amount  
of old crap that just got left on the servers [shakes head].

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:33:14 +0000, Phil Cook wrote:

>> I recall from my NetWare 4 days that it was one of a very few that used
>> GFS style backups - which are/were more popular on mainframe systems.
> 
> Might have been Arcserve, rings bells.

I don't believe Arcserve has ever used GFS rotations - though I haven't 
looked at the latest versions, so maybe they added it.  Palindrone was 
bought by Arcadia IIRC, the original owners of Backup Exec.  They got 
bought by Veritas, who then was bought by EMC IIRC (might've been 
Symmantec, though, now that I think of it).

>> Ouch.  That's gotta hurt.
> 
> They were lucky in that it had never happened, the only 'problem' they
> had was the rolling restore window. The users had got into the habit of
> renaming files etc. out to ensure they wouldn't get overwritten before
> the archived monthly tape (yes they did at least have one of those) the
> amount of old crap that just got left on the servers [shakes head].

Users can be a pain, can't they?

Jim

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And lo on Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:42:27 -0000, Jim Henderson  
<nos### [at] nospamcom> did spake, saying:

> On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:33:14 +0000, Phil Cook wrote:
>
>>> I recall from my NetWare 4 days that it was one of a very few that used
>>> GFS style backups - which are/were more popular on mainframe systems.
>>
>> Might have been Arcserve, rings bells.
>
> I don't believe Arcserve has ever used GFS rotations - though I haven't
> looked at the latest versions, so maybe they added it.  Palindrone was
> bought by Arcadia IIRC, the original owners of Backup Exec.  They got
> bought by Veritas, who then was bought by EMC IIRC (might've been
> Symmantec, though, now that I think of it).

Might not have been then, wasn't my section.

>>> Ouch.  That's gotta hurt.
>>
>> They were lucky in that it had never happened, the only 'problem' they
>> had was the rolling restore window. The users had got into the habit of
>> renaming files etc. out to ensure they wouldn't get overwritten before
>> the archived monthly tape (yes they did at least have one of those) the
>> amount of old crap that just got left on the servers [shakes head].
>
> Users can be a pain, can't they?

I think they got fed up with "I deleted/changed this four days ago can I  
get it back please?"- "No" so they worked around it. If the users start  
doing things like this it's time to look at why.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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>> We do. On every backup run. And to this day, I have never, ever had a
>> problem restoring something that the backup software said was OK.
> 
> Do you do a checksum-based verification, or a compare-to-disk 
> verification?

It should be a compare-to-disk verification. (At least, it generates 
enough I/O traffic!) I would think anything less wouldn't tell you much...

>> Indeed, if the tape is wearing out, I usually get an error message
>> before the verify phase even begins. (Not sure how it manages that, but
>> it often reports a CRC error...)
> 
> I imagine that even without a verify, your software checks during the 
> backup process to make sure it was written properly.

Yeah, but I was thinking at the physical level. Maybe it's a 3-head tape 
system?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Jim Henderson wrote:

> What problems do you have with it?  I know a guy in your area who used to 
> work in BE support (he's now out of the business, but I still may have a 
> few contacts inside Veritas - I think now a part of EMC, isn't it?)

Well, apart from the general level of difficulty of getting any SCSI 
device to work properly in the first place, it *is* quite annoying how 
every single damn time BE has any kind of problem, it refuses to respond 
to any user input until you forcibly terminate all its services. I don't 
know *why* they bothered having a "cancel job" button; it never ever works!

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:02:22 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:

>>> We do. On every backup run. And to this day, I have never, ever had a
>>> problem restoring something that the backup software said was OK.
>> 
>> Do you do a checksum-based verification, or a compare-to-disk
>> verification?
> 
> It should be a compare-to-disk verification. (At least, it generates
> enough I/O traffic!) I would think anything less wouldn't tell you
> much...

I can certainly tell you it doesn't.  The only way to test the 
readability of a tape effectively is to actually read it and compare the 
data to disk.

>>> Indeed, if the tape is wearing out, I usually get an error message
>>> before the verify phase even begins. (Not sure how it manages that,
>>> but it often reports a CRC error...)
>> 
>> I imagine that even without a verify, your software checks during the
>> backup process to make sure it was written properly.
> 
> Yeah, but I was thinking at the physical level. Maybe it's a 3-head tape
> system?

Could be.

Jim

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On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:54:04 +0000, Phil Cook wrote:

>> Users can be a pain, can't they?
> 
> I think they got fed up with "I deleted/changed this four days ago can I
> get it back please?"- "No" so they worked around it. If the users start
> doing things like this it's time to look at why.

One of the many reasons people use NetWare - you delete a file, you don't 
have to go back to tape to recover it, as long as salvage is turned 
on. :-)

Jim

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On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:04:37 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
>> What problems do you have with it?  I know a guy in your area who used
>> to work in BE support (he's now out of the business, but I still may
>> have a few contacts inside Veritas - I think now a part of EMC, isn't
>> it?)
> 
> Well, apart from the general level of difficulty of getting any SCSI
> device to work properly in the first place,

Not difficult at all, as long as the bus is properly terminated.  90% of 
all SCSI issues are improperly terminated buses.  10% are probably 
mismatched SCSI technologies (speed, etc).

> it *is* quite annoying how
> every single damn time BE has any kind of problem, it refuses to respond
> to any user input until you forcibly terminate all its services. I don't
> know *why* they bothered having a "cancel job" button; it never ever
> works!

Well, if the problem is a hardware-related problem, that kinda makes 
sense - the system has to wait for the hardware to respond.  I don't 
think any backup program would work properly if there was a hardware 
issue...

Jim

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>> Well, apart from the general level of difficulty of getting any SCSI
>> device to work properly in the first place,
> 
> Not difficult at all, as long as the bus is properly terminated.  90% of 
> all SCSI issues are improperly terminated buses.  10% are probably 
> mismatched SCSI technologies (speed, etc).

And how many of them are "Windows NT doesn't support this model of tape 
drive"?

>> it *is* quite annoying how
>> every single damn time BE has any kind of problem, it refuses to respond
>> to any user input until you forcibly terminate all its services. I don't
>> know *why* they bothered having a "cancel job" button; it never ever
>> works!
> 
> Well, if the problem is a hardware-related problem, that kinda makes 
> sense - the system has to wait for the hardware to respond.  I don't 
> think any backup program would work properly if there was a hardware 
> issue...

What, you mean like the way the entire Windows user shell locks up 
completely for several seconds every time you close the CD tray? 
[Seriously, have these people never *heard* of threading?!]

BE just seems to be very bad at handling any kind of problem that might 
crop up. If everything goes perfectly, BE is happy. If the tiniest thing 
goes wrong, it gets all upset and won't do anything any more...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:26:14 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:

>>> Well, apart from the general level of difficulty of getting any SCSI
>>> device to work properly in the first place,
>> 
>> Not difficult at all, as long as the bus is properly terminated.  90%
>> of all SCSI issues are improperly terminated buses.  10% are probably
>> mismatched SCSI technologies (speed, etc).
> 
> And how many of them are "Windows NT doesn't support this model of tape
> drive"?

Very few, as NT is out of support now. ;-)

>>> it *is* quite annoying how
>>> every single damn time BE has any kind of problem, it refuses to
>>> respond to any user input until you forcibly terminate all its
>>> services. I don't know *why* they bothered having a "cancel job"
>>> button; it never ever works!
>> 
>> Well, if the problem is a hardware-related problem, that kinda makes
>> sense - the system has to wait for the hardware to respond.  I don't
>> think any backup program would work properly if there was a hardware
>> issue...
> 
> What, you mean like the way the entire Windows user shell locks up
> completely for several seconds every time you close the CD tray?
> [Seriously, have these people never *heard* of threading?!]

I've seen that a few times, but it's been a while since I don't run 
Windows natively any more.

> BE just seems to be very bad at handling any kind of problem that might
> crop up. If everything goes perfectly, BE is happy. If the tiniest thing
> goes wrong, it gets all upset and won't do anything any more...

Well, if something goes wrong with backup software, arguably you WANT it 
to tell you and not complete its task.  After all, an incomplete backup 
isn't much use to anyone with a dead system.

Jim

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>> And how many of them are "Windows NT doesn't support this model of tape
>> drive"?
> 
> Very few, as NT is out of support now. ;-)

Tell me about it...

>> What, you mean like the way the entire Windows user shell locks up
>> completely for several seconds every time you close the CD tray?
>> [Seriously, have these people never *heard* of threading?!]
> 
> I've seen that a few times, but it's been a while since I don't run 
> Windows natively any more.

Same thing happens if you accidentally click on A: by mistake. Entire 
Windows shell locks up for a few seconds while it repeatedly polls the 
device until it's quite sure there's no disk there. *sigh*

>> BE just seems to be very bad at handling any kind of problem that might
>> crop up. If everything goes perfectly, BE is happy. If the tiniest thing
>> goes wrong, it gets all upset and won't do anything any more...
> 
> Well, if something goes wrong with backup software, arguably you WANT it 
> to tell you and not complete its task.  After all, an incomplete backup 
> isn't much use to anyone with a dead system.

No, but when I give it a new tape and tell it to restart the backup 
operation, it would be damn useful if it would start *doing* the backup 
rather than just sitting there looking at me! :-S

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v7 escribió:
> Same thing happens if you accidentally click on A: by mistake. Entire 
> Windows shell locks up for a few seconds while it repeatedly polls the 
> device until it's quite sure there's no disk there. *sigh*

Or dragging a file, trying to drop it on a specific folder, and 
accidentally moving the mouse over a mapped network drive on the folder 
tree. The other machine on the network is *turned off*. explorer hangs 
for like 30 seconds until it decides it waited too much for the network 
reply.

Meanwhile, I can't release the mouse button. If I release it, explorer 
will handle the mouse event when it unhangs, and I don't know what 
folder it will end up dropping it in...

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On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:49:35 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:

>>> And how many of them are "Windows NT doesn't support this model of
>>> tape drive"?
>> 
>> Very few, as NT is out of support now. ;-)
> 
> Tell me about it...

Well, you see, NT is out of support now..... ;-)

>>> What, you mean like the way the entire Windows user shell locks up
>>> completely for several seconds every time you close the CD tray?
>>> [Seriously, have these people never *heard* of threading?!]
>> 
>> I've seen that a few times, but it's been a while since I don't run
>> Windows natively any more.
> 
> Same thing happens if you accidentally click on A: by mistake. Entire
> Windows shell locks up for a few seconds while it repeatedly polls the
> device until it's quite sure there's no disk there. *sigh*

Yup.

>>> BE just seems to be very bad at handling any kind of problem that
>>> might crop up. If everything goes perfectly, BE is happy. If the
>>> tiniest thing goes wrong, it gets all upset and won't do anything any
>>> more...
>> 
>> Well, if something goes wrong with backup software, arguably you WANT
>> it to tell you and not complete its task.  After all, an incomplete
>> backup isn't much use to anyone with a dead system.
> 
> No, but when I give it a new tape and tell it to restart the backup
> operation, it would be damn useful if it would start *doing* the backup
> rather than just sitting there looking at me! :-S

Well, yes, I can't argue that point. :-)

Jim

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> Same thing happens if you accidentally click on A: by mistake. Entire 
> Windows shell locks up for a few seconds while it repeatedly polls the 
> device until it's quite sure there's no disk there. *sigh*

Not for me. It just hour-glasses that one window. Maybe you didn't set 
the checkbox that says "run each window in a separate process"?

> No, but when I give it a new tape and tell it to restart the backup 
> operation, it would be damn useful if it would start *doing* the backup 
> rather than just sitting there looking at me! :-S

That's why I like disk drives for backups better. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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>> Same thing happens if you accidentally click on A: by mistake. Entire 
>> Windows shell locks up for a few seconds while it repeatedly polls the 
>> device until it's quite sure there's no disk there. *sigh*
> 
> Not for me. It just hour-glasses that one window. Maybe you didn't set 
> the checkbox that says "run each window in a separate process"?

No, that's checked. It doesn't seem to make any noticable difference to 
anything though.

(My favourit part is when you open the "My Computer" window, and you 
have a CD in the drive. Now Windoze locks up while it spins up the 
CD-ROM drive to check what the volume label is... What, you can't 
*cache* that? Or multitask while you're waiting?? Damnit, AmigaDOS 
managed that trick 15 years ago...)

>> No, but when I give it a new tape and tell it to restart the backup 
>> operation, it would be damn useful if it would start *doing* the 
>> backup rather than just sitting there looking at me! :-S
> 
> That's why I like disk drives for backups better. :-)

And what on earth makes you think that using different backup hardware 
would solve a problem with a poorly designed software product?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> (My favourit part is when you open the "My Computer" window, and you 
> have a CD in the drive. Now Windoze locks up while it spins up the 
> CD-ROM drive to check what the volume label is... What, you can't 
> *cache* that?

Yeah, I will say the caching is rather poorly done for that stuff.

>> That's why I like disk drives for backups better. :-)
> 
> And what on earth makes you think that using different backup hardware 
> would solve a problem with a poorly designed software product?

Just experience. Everybody knows how to reset a hard drive with an 
error. Tape drives are all different and all flakey, IME.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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