[H-GEN] DVD Backup & burning software under Linux

[Stuart Longland]

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Paul Gearon wrote:

| You can use the normal cdrecord, although it doesn't support *some* +
| drives.  I believe that CDRDAO works on all models.

Ahh okay, that's one I didn't think of... I'll have to experiment with
it too... although, now I've spotted growisofs, I'll definately look
down that road.

| If it weren't a commerical deployment then I'd also suggest getting the
| packet filesystem patches, as this lets you format +RW media as a
| rewritable filesystem, and just use them as normal removable disks.

Well, depends on how you define "commercial deployment".  The ASSN[1] is
actually a non-profit organisation run by volunteers, so I'm not sure if
this applies.

I'll have a look at this BackupPC, although it doesn't seem to mention
how it handles DOS-style file attributes -- otherwise it would be great
for backing up the desktop machines too.

I'm torn though between something like this, and using plain tar
archives -- which are readable on just about anything, including
Windows[2].  I'm aware you can tell tar to split the archive using -M,
and specify a tape length with the -L option, but I haven't as yet
mastered the -F option.  Also, I'd need to look into how one does
incremental backups.

The idea here, is to use the DVD-RWs[3] using an ISO9660 filesystem to
hold full backups of the system.

Originally the idea was to use Rock Ridge extensions to back up the
system, but the permissions aren't preserved properly, so it would be a
problem when restoring the data, as I'd have to create a script on the
DVD to set the permissions properly.

I've decided to use tar instead, since its readable on most platforms.

Incremental backups can be done on DDS2 tapes [5] using something like
tar (once I've got full backups working, it should be a small step to
get a script going to do incremental backups).

An idea hit me the other night, is it possible to create the tar files
for incremental backups, then cat them to the tape?  The reason is
because the unit in question is just a bare drive, no autochanger, so it
would be easiest if the backup could be done in one hit, then dumped to
tape over time.

Anyways, thanks for the replies thus far, I shall go have a play... ;-)

- --
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Stuart Longland           stuartl at longlandclan.hopto.org |
| Brisbane Mesh Node: 719             http://stuartl.cjb.net/ |
| I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere |
| Atomic Linux Project    <--->    http://atomicl.berlios.de/ |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

Footnotes:
1. Their website: <http://www.asperger.asn.au>
2. using WinZIP, WinRAR, Cygwin or MingW32's tar, etc...
3. Or +RWs, don't know the difference anyway -- I'm aware they are
different.
4. Write bits are switched off -- I can see why, but it does complicate
things.
5. I saw Greg's comment reguarding the quality of these units ... at
least it's a step above the QIC-40/80 & Travan tape drives.  And it's
certainly better than what they have -- next to none. :-/
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