*BSD News Article 50347


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From: peter@nmti.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Backing up the whole 9 yards...???
Message-ID: <id.XFYM1.FFA@nmti.com>
Sender: peter@nmti.com (peter da silva)
Organization: Network/development platform support, NMTI
References: <DDHIzE.25r@agora.rdrop.com> <id.SCRM1.LNA@nmti.com> <41hdeu$c6@news.cloud9.net>
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 1995 19:54:20 GMT
Lines: 44

In article <41hdeu$c6@news.cloud9.net>,
Thor Lancelot Simon <tls@cloud9.net> wrote:
> Unfortunately, neither DAT nor Exabyte are good enough for many types of 
> production systems, although they're the only thing that's cheap enough 
> for many applications.  I don't care *what* kind of MTBF the 
> manufacturers claim -- helical-scan tape drives that _aren't_ run in a 
> clean room, as I suspect the MTBF tests are, show service lifetimes in 
> the single-digit months when subjected to heavy use on a daily basis.

We've been using Exabyte 8200s and 8500s daily for several years now with
no problems. We've had two drives go out, and one of those was a power
supply.

Though I've resigned myself to replacing my VCR every 18-24 months.

> If 
> you plan to use DAT for something important, it's essential to buy a spare

I'd change this to: if you're using *anything* for anything important, it's
essential to buy a spare. I'm not always successful, but I try very very
hard to avoid getting *one* of anything for production use. Even if that
anything is a tape backup for an NT box (ick), I'm using Exabyte because
we have spares.

> DLT would be a good answer -- a great answer, really -- but the tapes cost
> three or four times what DAT tapes cost, even the ones that only store a 
> little bit more data.

They're *way* faster. We get about 3 times the transfer rate for DLT over
DAT... and what were you saying about helical scan in production use?

> No kidding.  But you really, really, really, REALLY should use the 
> Kerberos support if you're using its network features; IP spoofing makes 
> them extremely dangerous.

We have our production network separate from our financial network, and
they're proxy-firewalled from the Internet.

Kerberos I haven't figured out yet. It's sort of soggy and hard to light.
-- 
Peter da Silva    (NIC: PJD2)      `-_-'             1601 Industrial Boulevard
Bailey Network Management           'U`             Sugar Land, TX  77487-5013
+1 713 274 5180         "Har du kramat din varg idag?"                     USA
Bailey pays for my technical expertise.        My opinions probably scare them