backing up large filesystems

[Juergen Christoffel <unido!gmdzi!sysiphos!JC@uunet.uu.net>]

    Date: Tue, 20 Jun 89 15:03 PDT
    From: shirley.pa%Xerox.COM@uunet


    Are there better solutions to backing up a large filesystem than 40 megabyte
    cart tapes?  We now have ~20 tape full dumps and expect to double that soon.

One better solution is to use a real tape like the Pertec FS2001 which
is sold by symbolics. We have one connected to our main server (a 3650)
and are all in all satisfied with it. (At 6250bpi you put ~200MB on a
reel and it's much faster than any streamer)

    One possibility I'm looking into is using RTAPE and a Sun to back up to a 2
    gigabyte video cartridge.  Does anyone have experience with this?

I'm currently investigating a thing called Gigatape which happens to be
a DAT-tape based backup system. (DAT is Digital Audio Tape) It stores
1,96GB unformatted and about 1GB formatted on a single DAT cartridge. I
expect this to be more interesting than the 8mm video tapes currently in
use for most such giga-things.

This system may be hooked up to a Mac's SCSI interface, to SUN with
SCSCI and OS 4.x, VMS-machines with a Q-Bus.

As I've been told by its manufacturer, it should be compatible (whatever
this means) to a pertec interface like the one used for Symbolics' tape
drive. I'll try this and will try to get it working on my XL400's SCSI
interface.

	--jc