On Wed, 12 Aug 2009, rorycl wrote:

> An important aspect of the system is that the tapes should be readable
> for 12 years, by other parties if necessary. From this point of view we
> like the idea of providing a CD with each tape set of the software
> needed to extract the contents

Judging from my experience with CD-Rs there is a high chance that the disc
will become unreadable within 12 years unless kept in a cool, dark
environment (on a shelf in an office isn't good enough)

> together with a listing of the enclosed files in a UTF8 text file. We
> will be required to audit each backup set by successfully extracting
> files from tape.

Will the tape technology still be available in 12 years?

Again, based on past experience I'm pretty sure it won't be.


Bacula allows backups to be migrated or copied between pools.

One of the advantages of this is that it allows archival sets to be
migrated to new storage technology relatively easily.

Bacula also has options for hash-based verification of files. This allows
you to not only extract a backup's contents, but to verify their integrity
- that can then be done on a scheduled basis and if coupled with SMART
monitoring of the tape drive (LTOs use smart to report error correction
stats during tape run) this will give ample warning of impending tape
doom.

AB




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