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Archiver > TMG > 2002-01 > 1010071175


From: "Gale Gorman" <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] A Cautionary Tale - Backups
Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 09:21:35 -0600
References: <HMEEKBJHJDICAMHBACPDIEBNENAA.Jerrod@Jerrod.Com>


Jerome,

So then do you keep some sort of written log describing what is on each
backup? It is true that I have lost files forever, but they weren't too
important to me. The important stuff is labeled and stored on floppy or
tape. Some of those I've had since 1986 and it may be time to clean them
up.

Gale Gorman
Houston

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jerrod Carter" <>
To: <>
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 6:34 AM
Subject: RE: [TMG] A Cautionary Tale - Backups


> Gale Gorman wrote:
>
> >I am moving from years on a UNIX system where complete backups are
> >normal and standard. We always rotated a series of tapes with one
> >offsite at all times. These tapes get reused as long as no error
> >messages are reported by the 'verify pass' and I have used some over
> >and over for years.
> >
> >The point is they are ALWAYS overwritten with the latest stuff. Why
> >would you want to append them?
>
> For a permanent versioning system. When you rotated tapes, there was only
a
> certain amount of time you could go back. Perhaps thirty days. If a user
of
> the UNIX system discovered that their file had been accidentally deleted
> more than thirty days prior to the discovery, then your tape rotation
scheme
> would not allow them to recover that file. Similarly, if their data became
> corrupted thirty days prior to the discovery, it would not be recoverable.
> If you increase the rotation scheme to a sixty day cycle, it's better, but
> still not foolproof.
>
> In genealogy, we don't look at some people for very long periods of time.
> With some folks have 50k+ people in their database, some folks might not
get
> looked at for a very long time indeed. If something happens to corrupt a
> person's data, and it isn't discovered for a long time, it might take a
very
> old backup to put things right again.
>
> Jerrod Carter
>
>
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