We never had issues with software version or the OS. We always ran into problems with the drives themselves though... especially with data DAT backups since the drives weren't being made anymore. A few years ago we tried switching to DVD-RAM (drag and drop w/o retrospect), unfortunately that platform never really caught on. It was only last year that we went back to tape based archive; AIT.
Have you been impacted by application versioning or OS upgrades?
I don't mean for this to sound like an interview, I have just experienced first-hand issues (most recently Retrospect 5 and OS-X 10.4 for a client).
John
John Spencer www.bridgemediasolutions.com
On Jun 9, 2005, at 8:26 PM, Ken Hansen wrote:
We were using Retrospect software.
On Jun 9, 2005, at 9:10 PM, John Spencer wrote:
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
On Jun 9, 2005, at 3:47 PM, John Spencer wrote:
This is an incorrect statement. There are various backup applications that will skip a bad block of data and continue the restore process, as well as applications that will report on the quality of the data archive as it is being written. Error correction is not a function of the data storage tape itself.
And I would never trust a data storage tape to be readable 25-30 years from now.
John John Spencer www.bridgemediasolutions.com
On Jun 9, 2005, at 2:36 PM, Jeffrey Kane wrote:
I've seen the figure 25-30 years bandied about for data tape. Data backups are a double edge sword. They have better error correction so the data is more resilient. However, if there's an unrecoverable error it renders ALL data for that particular file (and if it's in the directory area, all data on the tape) unrecoverable. With digital audio tape the error only affects that portion of the recording.