As I know you're aware (I'm writing this to the others on the list, really, not you), there is a huge difference between most of the "backup" tape solutions that have been sold over the years and the enterprise-class tape solutions like LTO. We definitely need clarification here.
However, as you are aware as well, the roadmap for LTO and AIT and S-AIT make keeping a given format around much more than five years questionable, I believe most of these formats will read back two generations and write back one generation, but the space saving with a doubling of capacity per generation makes you want to upgrade the library. The only downside of this is it generates a lot of trash for the landfill and also costs some money, but the upgrades are probably close to free compared to adding slots to the robotic library system.
Ken,
were you using a specific software backup application, or using Windows generic backup utility, or a TAR archive?
John
John Spencer www.bridgemediasolutions.com
On Jun 9, 2005, at 7:46 PM, Ken Hansen wrote:
I also would never trust DATA backup for longer than 5 years. The past two places I worked I found this out the hard way. Trying to restore 5 and 8 years old data respectively yielded horrible results. We then implemented a policy to have all Data tapes checked and re backed up to new AIT tapes with the understanding that those tapes would then be checked in 5 years time.
-Ken
Richard L. Hess email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Vignettes Media web: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/ Aurora, Ontario, Canada (905) 713 6733 1-877-TAPE-FIX