>>>>> "Sean" == Sean Doran <smd@ebone.net> writes:

Sean> Um if we are redesigning backup stuff, I have a question.

Sean> Should backups be tape-focused, or considered a form of remote
Sean> long-term stable storage?

[more stuff about backups going to RAID arrays, and so forth]

I know people hate it when old, crusty unix types start relating war
stories, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

At a place I used to work, we had a bunch of SGIs, each with multiple
hard drives, and each workstation (and its peripherals) was plugged
into its own UPS.  One day, we had a lightning storm.  Within a week,
about 5 different hard drives had failed.  This actually turned into
an *epic* story, for reasons I'm not going to get into.  But the moral
of the story is this:

At some point, you'll have a real disaster, and multiple hard drives
will fail at the same time.  That's why backups should be *offline*.
Tapes are a good way of achieving offline backups.  RAID arrays, IMHO,
are not.  This doesn't mean they're useless; in fact, they're great
insurance against the vast majority of hardware failures.  But not
against all hardware failures.

Chris

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------cjones@math.montana.edu
Chris Jones                                          cjones@honors.montana.edu
           Mad scientist at large                    cjones@nervana.montana.edu
"Is this going to be a stand-up programming session, sir, or another bug hunt?"