Topic: SCSI tape replacement

[Lowell Fuher]

On a production machine, 6.0.1 - fully updated, I have a SCSI tape drive that appears to be failing.  One replacement option is to use an IDE drive.  Will I run into problems going from SCSI to IDE?

Thanks!

[dave_d]

I have changed from one to the other without problem.  What I did was to disable the tape backup and reboot the machine to check that no tape backup was to be performed.  I then stopped the machine, installed (in my case) the new SCSI tape, restarted the machine, re-enabled tape backup and then checked the operation by scheduling a backup for 5 mins later.  As soon as the backup started I stopped it by ejecting the tape and checked that the error condition was reported.  Reschedule the backup for the required time and check the next day.

I can add the following comments that I'm sure will raise some hackles ....

1. The only time a tape backup fails is when you're trying to restore a system
2. Tape backups consume huge amounts of time for almost no gain
3. Mounting a tape written of system A onto your new system B will result in a failure somewhere along the line.

You must excuse my cynicism, but I've been managing systems for about 25 years now and I can honestly say that I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of systems that have correctly restored from tape - and that's on all sorts of systems ranging from early ICL and IBM mainframes, through all the various DEC PDP and VAX systems and on to current Unix, Linux and Windoze(!) systems.  For reliable SME server backups I now use a second, remote server to backup the production server.  It's quicker, cheaper and more secure.  On one site we just copy the contents of user directories, ibays and anything else that's required from server A to the same location on server B, and on another couple of sites I use BoxBackup to make secure backups.  (Note that BoxBackup has recently been updated and it's now quite a challenge to get it made on a V6 server.  However, that's my challenge for next week.  It's fine on a V7 box)

I hope some of this helps!

Dave

[Lowell Fuher]

Dave,
Thanks so much for the reply.  I felt I was semi-safe to make a change, but having conformation is ALWAYS a good thing.

I contacted Dell Friday afternoon and was emailed a firmware upgrade / test file which I ran on that server yesterday - Saturday - as I took it down to do that.  The tests came back OK on a new tape, an old tape failed so I know the testing procedure works, and the firmware went in ok.

I recently needed to rely on that backup to help me restore after a hardware failure.  I had an IDE cable cause troubles which scrambled my mirror.  4 months earlier I replaced the hard drives and apparently the cable didn't like the change.  

By accident I found a way to restore the data after the original restore failed.  After the upgrade on the drives I upgraded the software using YUM.  Well the tape didn't like it and I couldn't get a full simple-reload.  I did accidently reload the entire tape in a different directory on my first restore.  When I figured out what I had done I cleaned the drives and attempted another restore, which failed.  But - reinstalling the OS doing the updates, and installing the tape contents to another folder allowed me to capture 95% of the data and have all the users up by Monday AM, this all stared on a Thursday.  I did calculate the downtime over the years since the first install, and we have had a 99.852% uptime on the SME file server.  Thats something to shout about!

I am looking at using BoxBackup on these two servers (file server & server gageway).  I would be very interested in sharing work and thoughts on this project.  I have one mySQL project to complete first before I go further on BBox, and was told Friday to build a new server with Windows for the accounting dept., so BB may be on hold for a couple of months.

Your cynicism is well noted and has merrit.  I have been in the bizz now since 99 - full time 65% of that.  Tapes are not trustworthy, but better than nothing - i guess...

Excuse the long winded........
 

[dave_d]

The number of times that I see this still astounds me.

, and was told Friday to build a new server with Windows for the accounting dept., so BB may be on hold for a couple of months.

I'll bet that whoever told you to do this has absolutely no technical expertise at all.  Perhaps you should keep a detailed tally of the TCO for the new Windoze box!

I'll keep you informed about the BB stuff .......

Dave

[Lowell Fuher]

I'll bet that whoever told you to do this has absolutely no technical expertise at all.  Perhaps you should keep a detailed tally of the TCO for the new Windoze box!

They searched long and hard for the application that would bese fit their needs.  The vendor has no *nix* version.  The fun part is I will be running the box on VMware with 3 planned servers running on the box.  I think I will sneak in a 4th Linux app.  Then build BBox almost at the same time and use it for the backup - and a second BB for the redundency over the T1 in one of our other buildings.
I just need to figure out how long to keep off-site backups. Any thoughts?

I'll keep you informed about the BB stuff .......

email me at   thaw0002@iasmm.com

Tanks!

[dave_d]

Hello moe,

I've got Boxbackup 0.10 working on both SME 6 and SME 7 servers.  I've got an SME 6.0.1-01 sending its files to an SME 7.0rc1 for storage.  In other words the SME6 box is a BoxBackup client, and the SME7 box is a BoxBackup server.  The whole backup box cost me about £20.00 for an old 350MHz Dell Optiplex GX1 and about £50 for two 80Gb discs - somewhat cheaper than a tape system!

Anyway, it all appears to be working fine.  I've written detailed notes that really ought to be added to this site (contribs.org) somewhere - in the wiki, I guess.  Unfortunately I don't know how to do this.  So, if you - or any other kind soul - can tell me how to post a document into the wiki (preferably as an update to http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php/BoxBackup) you can all get to know how it's done!

Regards,

Dave

[jcoleman]

Dave,

The easiest way in the world to put data in the wiki is to simply format it the way you want as plain text.  Then put a <pre> at the beginning and a </pre> at the end and you are done.  No wiki knowledge required.

I would be very interested in seeing your instructions for BoxBackup.  I think backup to NAS or HD is the only way to fly.  As for offsite storage, bandwidth is cheaper than tapes  

For Enterprise solutions, look at Open E-Nas (www.open-e.com)  The Enterprise version will actually sync to boxes remotely and/or allow you to take a snapshot and put it on a spare hot swap drive.  As cheap as SATA 500gig drives are........

-jeff

[Lowell Fuher]

Hello moe,

I've got Boxbackup 0.10 working on both SME 6 and SME 7 servers.  ...  I've written detailed notes that really ought to be added to this site (contribs.org) somewhere - in the wiki, I guess.  ....
Dave

 
Dave, I am really excited to see just how you prefored this awesome feat!  Share it Right here and I'm sure Jcoleman will help make it available to all.