On Sun, 26 Oct 2003, Doug Douglass wrote:

> > > Perhaps a warning should be added to amdump and amcheck to alert users to
> > > the situation when tapecycle is less than dumpcycle.
> >
> > Much appreciated.
> 
> As with all open source software, you're free to modify to your liking --
> patches are appreciated.
> 
> BTW, I don't mean to sound like I'm one of the maintainers of amanda because
> I'm not -- just a contented user.

There is no problem with that. My problem is I can't buy spare time, and
I currently cannot afford to get acquainted with the amanda scheduler
and stuff, and I already am involved in some open source software
projects.

> > dumpcycle 7 days
> > tapecycle 6 tapes
> > runspercycle 3 # or maybe four if I run four times a week
> >
> > (I can't bump tapecycle up on short notice, so I'll simply force level 0
> > more often.)
> 
> Those settings would be safer, e.g. you wouldn't be overwriting level 0s
> during your dumpcycle as you've seen. Those settings would also give you the
> ability to recover data up to two dumpcycles old. Don't change runspercycle
> as you show in your comment though, that will cause the overwrite problem
> you have observed.

Would it really? I'd have 4 runspercycle, add 1 to avoid
direct-overwrite, and have 1 spare with 6 tapes available.

> Unless your budget is extremely prohibitive, I'd get some more tapes.

This is SLR4 (2.5GB), which is above 10 EUR/GB - I don't think I'll get
"some more tapes" unless I make a real bargain.

I have SLR24 hardware and some tapes on site, and the specific (per GB)
tape price is much better for SLR24 (like 3 EUR/GB) and it takes fewer
tapes to hold all level 0 dumps, statistically :-)

After all, this is for personal use and I've wondered if "JBOD" might be
an option. ATA drives are cheaper than SLR24 tapes - under 1 EUR/GB -
but I doubt that equipment with a one-year warranty is suitable for
backups, no matter what the "component design life" claims...

-- 
Matthias Andree

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