[H-GEN] Linux backup tool of choice

[Christopher Biggs]

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Stuart Longland <stuartl at longlandclan.hopto.org> moved upon the face of the 'Net and spake thusly:

>
> Why, apart from the fact they chew up your floppy controller while in use and
> the fact they are slower than SCSI tape drives, what's the problem?  Seems to
> work alright, just I don't know how to use them.
>

Hideously slow, unreliable, cheap and nasty, expensive to feed, and
since they're proprietary the linux driver had to be
reverse-engineered.  

Oh and tiny, tiny capcity; the "N Megabyte" on the box has lots of
asterisks after it.  N/3 is more realistic.

>> If you used tar to write to tape, then do :
>> 
>>      mt -f /dev/ftape rewind
>>      tar xvf /dev/ftape
>
> Ahhh, okay, that was probably my problem.  I didn't tell it to rewind the tape
> when it was done.  I shall try that tomorrow when I get home.  I was of the
> impression that it rewinds the tape when it's done.

Well, /dev/ftape should auto-rewind, while /dev/nftape won't.

> | I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere |

So what's the problem? :-)


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