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

[Greg Black]

On 2004-06-11, Stuart Longland wrote:

> But, for the full backups,
> as I mentioned earlier, we'll most likely use DVD+RWs (or -RWs) for full
> backups... which (hopefully) should be readable by most computers
> equipped with DVD readers.

More or less correct, but beware that these media are not as
long-lived as popularly believed.  There are several reports
that you could find which discuss this; this is one that I saw
recently:  <http://tinyurl.com/2wlqa>.

> It should be
> trivial to grab an MD5sum of the tar file (or whatever's on the disc)
> before and after the burn to verify the contents of the disc.

I know somebody else has pointed out the error of this idea, but
I think it's worth reinforcing -- you need to look inside the
tar file and verify its contents; and you need to practise both
partial and full restores from your backups.  Unless you do
these things, you will have an unpleasant experience when you
least want it.

Cheers, Greg
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