[Techtalk] IDE tape drive issues and advice

[Michelle Murrain]

Hiya,

I have an IDE tape drive - a Seagate STT20000A. I'm running RH 8.0

RH definitely finds the drive, and tells me it's at /dev/ht0.

I can tar a small file onto the tape, it seems to work (I hear the 
right noises), but I can't list or retrieve the file. When I try to 
tar multiple files, I the server totally freezes. I have to unplug 
it. The diagnostics for linux that I got from seagates site couldn't 
recognize the drive.

Any ideas?

A side, related question: I'm working on a new server configuration. 
I will have 3 servers (mail, web, database/application/cvs servers), 
and a forth (another database/application) on the way, all need 
backup. I have this one IDE 10/20 GB tape drive to back them up, so 
far. Now at this point, this is enough capacity - but not for long. 
Tape backups take time and processor power. But I also want 
simplicity (I don't want 4 tape drives.)

What's the best thing to do in this situation? Buy a large capacity 
SCSI tape drive (and wince at the price)? Which server do I hang it 
on? Should I just use trusty rsync and tar (or nfs and tar), or go 
with something like amanda or arkeia?

Back it up on one big hard drive? (I actually just got a very 
reasonably priced 80 G firewire drive that I attach to my Mac. I 
could use this to back the servers up. Big disadvantage is that I 
don't get offsite backup with that method.) And a related security 
question - if I'm already running samba and netatalk behind a 
firewall, should I just stick with using one of those, or try using 
nfs?

Suggestions?

adthanksvance!!
-- 
.Michelle

--------------------------
Michelle Murrain, Technology Consulting
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