> Thomas Wakefield wrote:
>>
>>>>> Take a directory, dump it to tape, and it will live forever (roughly
>>>>> 5-10 years) on tape.  And the copy on disk will be deleted.  But if
>>>>> needed, we could pull the copy back from tape.  We could possibly
>>>>> write 2 copies to tape for redundancy.
> ...

>>> Thanks for all the answers.  Basically it sounds like bacula
>>> doesn't have anything for native archive support which is what i
>>> expected.  So i will do something along the lines of what
>>> everyone else does.
> 

Dan Langille wrote:
> I don't know how to reconcile your statements with the replies.
> 
> What, specifically, is missing from what you've heard?

I think for the case of "archive files and remove from disk",
then Bacula, can already handle it with an appropriate long retention 
times as described in the other posts.  The file records will remain in 
the database but that's not a problem as those files aren't part of your 
regular backup.

The more general case of "archiving what you regularly backup" is to 
periodically do a virtual full-backup to some tapes which are then 
removed.  In those cases you want to export the database records that 
correspond to the archive jobs and remove them from your regular-backup 
catalog.  You would them import those records into a separate archive 
catalog.   This way, a normal restore would come from your regular 
backup media and your regular-backup catalog would not grow 
indefinitely. If you need to restore from your archive, you would bacula 
to the archive catalog.

This requires item 22 on the current project list.

"Item 22: Ability to import/export Bacula database entities"

In the voting last May I gave this item highest priority.

Kel Raywood

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