--On Friday, October 24, 2003 17:58:19 -0700 Tavis Gustafson <tavis AT 
hq.dreamhost DOT com> wrote:

> I am planning on doing full backups of our file servers which have 200 GB
> volumes on them.
> 
> I read this in "Unix Backup and Recovery" :
> 
> AMANDA uses only as much tape as it needs. AMANDA does not yet do overflow
> from one tape to another. If it hits end of tape (or any other error)
> while writing an image, that tape is unmounted, the next one is loaded,
> and the image starts over from the beginning. This sequence continues if
> the image cannot fit on a tape.
> 
> If this is true, and I am using tapes smaller than 200 GB, will I have to
> segment my volumes into multiple backup runs?  What is considered an
> "image"?

An 'image' is a single entity that is to be backed up.  If you're using
dump then it is an entire partition.  If you use tar it is an entire
directory (which could be a partition).  An image is often referred to
in this mailing list as a DLE, or 'disklist entry', which is one line
of the disklist config file which lists the filesystems you want backed up.

The size of the data backed up from a single DLE must be able to fit on a
single tape, as Amanda doesn't split a single DLE across multiple tapes
(although some people on the list are currently working on patches for
that).  However, your DLE can be bigger than a tape if you use compression
and the compressed image does fit on a tape.

If you have volumes larger than your tapes (as many of us do), you can use
tar to backup subdirectories of your volumes, either individually or in
wildcarded groups.  There are several threads in the archives on ways to
do this that will ensure new subdirectories will still be backed up.

Frank

> 
>       Thank You
>       Tavis Gustafson
>       Dreamhost