On Tue, Aug 31, 2004 at 03:49:49PM -0400, Joe Konecny wrote:
> Gavin Henry wrote:
> 
> >Amanda is much better than that. It will but the backup in a holding disk
> >i.e. folder/partition until space runs out or hits the limit you set.
> >
> >It will not overwrite another tape unless you force it by hand, which
> >is good.
> >
> >You don't have to figure out which tape, amanda tells you. You can even 
> >browse the backup files like a normal Unix system and restore per file.
> >
> >You have not spec'd how often you backup either, how much data and much 
> >more
> >if we need to help you.
> >
> >Read the docs first and look at this site:
> >
> >http://www.oops.co.at/AMANDA-docs/index.html
> 
> So... is amanda really not made for disaster recovery?  That's great
> that it will back up to a holding disk with no tape but if the hard
> drive dies it's rather meaningless.

I don't understand the leap you've made here.
The holding disk is a buffer to allow multiple items to be
backed up simultaneously but with a single stream to tape.

If no "usable" tape is available amanda will still do the
backups but leave them in the buffer (holding disk) for
later taping.  "Usable" here can mean many things including
a tape not part of amanda's collection (do you really want
it to trash someone else's valuable data?), an amanda tape
not permitted to be overwritten (admin controllable), or
even a broken drive or no tape inserted.

How does that imply "not for disaster recovery"?  What would
your current system do if the tape "jammed"?  Would it still
backup?  True, if you encountered a situation where you did
not put in a tape AND the holding disk died you would not
have a backup.  Is that your concern?

BTW some amanda installations use cheaper, separate drives
for the holding disk.  On my primary home office system,
the 4 system drives are scsi.  My holding disk is an IDE
drive bigger than the sum of the scsi drives.  Once I went
on a week long trip forgetting to insert a new set of tapes.
Came home, inserted the tapes and flushed a weeks worth of
normal backups on to several tapes.

-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                  jon AT jgcomp DOT com
 JG Computing
 4455 Province Line Road        (609) 252-0159
 Princeton, NJ  08540-4322      (609) 683-7220 (fax)