[Techtalk] backup - tar

[Laurel Fan]

On Mon, Aug 30, 2004 at 12:04:20PM -0700, Maria McKinley wrote:
> I am using tar to backup, and I am really frustrated with it.  It keeps 
> going through a dozen or so files, and then quitting with no 
> explanation.  It does this no matter which files I try to backup.  The 
> command I use is:
> 
> nohup tar -czvf /dev/nst0 --atime-preserve /home > /tmp/backup &

I've never tried to use tar on an actual tape drive, so none of this
is from actual experience.  Have you tried it without the z option?  I
don't know how well gzipping interacts with writing to a tape device.
Also, the 'dump' and 'restore' commands deal with backing up an entire
filesystem, which looks like what you may be doing.  Dump also has
incremental backup, which may be useful to you.  This page describes
it:

http://surf.ap.seikei.ac.jp/~nakano/dump-restore/dump-restore-mini-HOWTO.en.html#s3

-- 
laurel at sdf.lonestar.org
http://dreadnought.gorgorg.org