Preservation of correspondence

[Jules Richardson]

Jim Leonard wrote:
> Jules Richardson wrote:
>> I've always used DLT for backups in recent years; far as I'm aware 
>> they have a reasonable level of error detection / correction 
>> information built in at the lowest level, I don't see them dying out 
>> for a long time, and I prefer the fact that the media's self-contained 
>> (unlike CD / DVD which runs the risk of attracting dirt / fingerprints 
>> due to handling).
> 
> It is rare that they fail completely (they usually slowly develop errors 
> over time in heavy use until you have to replace them).  But let me tell 
> you, if you get the one rare one that does fail, it fails SPECTACULARLY. 
>  As in, it takes the drive with it!

:-)
I've never had one fail on me, but thankfully it'll always be easy to pick up 
either an identical one or one that's compatible with the media used.

>> [1] Yes, tar has some verification options built in, but at least for 
> 
> Its verification is practically a non-feature.  Always generate parity 
> or make redundant copies.

Yep, that was my thinking too. I really need to find the time to write a Linux 
util to suck tar data off DLT and checksum file-by-file to test backups; 
currently I restore the whole archive and then use find/cksum/diff to check 
against source data, but it's annoying needing that extra disk capacity just 
for the sake of backup testing.

cheers

Jules