On 03/29/2014 12:17 AM, Carl Hartung wrote:
On Sat, 29 Mar 2014 04:21:41 +0100 Carlos E. R. wrote:
I personally dislike compressed tars for backups. A single byte error in the media, and you can not decompress it. The entire tar archive is lost. Very unreliable.
In my case, the issue is moot, but I never lost an archive due to the issues you've raised here. There's not only faulty / degraded media to worry about, but there are varying calibrations / alignments across optical drives. The potential for catastrophic loss definitely exists. In fact, I actually think this is why I stopped using CD/DVD media for backups. I switched to running all my backups to redundant external hard drives. This method means at all times I have at least three copies of everything critical ... the 'live' filesystem originals plus two physically separate 'mirrors' (rsync.)
Looking at the price of bulk thumbdrives from China, in the order of $10 each for 256G quantity 50 to 400, that's a very viable alternative .... If you can afford to amortise the bulk purchase somehow. Corporate its easy to spread the cost, but for individuals that's another matter. Historically I've tried doing this with the local "computer club" in various guises, up to back in the 1980s, getting a leased line internet connection for the local UNIX Users Group. The "if you're so smart" reaction pizzed me off so I did it and got no support, only criticism from the group (including mailbombing) so I made it a commercial venture to cover cost and found it was profitable. Maybe I should go into the business of selling thumbdrives? Would you buy one, James? -- "Combinatorics -- how to count without counting." -- Cassablanca -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org