On Thursday 01 April 2004 12:04, Frank Smith wrote:
>I'm retiring 80 tapes in a library and replacing them with new
>tapes.  Any thoughts on the best way to do it?
>   One way would be to label the new tapes with the same labels
>as the old tapes, and swap the tapes out as they are about to be
>used (or swap them all out at once, and keep the old tapes around
>for a tapecycle).
>   Another method would be to label them with numbers starting
>after the last old tape label, double the tapecycle, swap out
>the tapes (and keeping the old ones for a tapecycle), and remember
>to revert the tapecycle later.
>   Any pros or cons to either method?  Does labeling a new tape
>with an existing label make Aamnda "forget" about the contents of
>the tape?
>
>Thanks,
>Frank

ISTR there was a problem the last time I had to fool with that Frank.

Based on that, I'd write a short script to read the old tapes label 
out to a scratch file using dd, then make sure the new tape is 
rewound, and dd that scratch file out to the new tape.  80 tapes 
would take a few hours attention though due to the recognition cycle 
when a new tape is inserted not being as fast as it should be.

So now you have two sets of 80 tapes with identical names between the 
sets.  When it wants the 'name'ed tape, feed it the new one, and when 
it has been successfully used, the old one by that 'name' can then be 
retired forever as its not part of a potential recovery anymore.

By doing this you would still have the old tapes available in the 
event you needed to recover something yet today, but amanda would not 
be aware of the difference and would continue blissfully.  Once the 
tapecycle reaches the end of the 80 new tapes, the overlap is gone 
and the old ones can then be fully retired.

You'll probably get a dozen other suggestions, but thats how I did it 
once.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
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Copyright 2004 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.