[ILUG] Backup media

[Pádraig Brady]

Tony Groves wrote:
> Greetings all.
> 
> I'm looking to replace an old tape drive on a Debian Etch server and am
> wondering what to replace it with. About 10GB needs to be backed-up
> every two weeks or so, and there would be ten or so volumes, so that
> each would be overwritten after 6 months.

If you don't require off site storage, just attach
another disk and create snapshots to it using something
like rdiff-backup or dirvish. What's the chances that
both disks fail at the same time?
http://www.pixelbeat.org/docs/reliability_calculator/

If you do need offsite storage, then USB sticks aren't
a bad solution I suppose, but be aware that quality varies a lot.
I would use USB drives instead:
http://www.pixelbeat.org/systems/usb_backup/

> I'm wondering about USB memory sticks; apparently 16GB sticks are
> available now, which would be big enough, but are they reliable enough?
> And am I right to assume they can be formatted with ext3 or other
> permissions-aware FS?

yes they're just block devices.

> Or does anybody have other suggestions? Is tape still king?

No, not for about 20 years now.

Pádraig.