[Info-vax] ODS-5 data/file recovery

[Paul Sture]

In article <51202b7b$0$614$e4fe514c at dreader34.news.xs4all.nl>,
 MG <marcogbNO at SPAMxs4all.nl> wrote:

> On 16-feb-2013 19:14, David Froble wrote:
> 
> It's too bad that ASU is rather antiquated and neglected, nowadays.
> Or, so it appears (the last time I checked), because all the other/
> alternative means and methods are barely usable!  VMS to non-VMS,
> in particular.

Sorry, what is ASU in this context?
 
> 
> > Aborting operations can sometimes find some "edge" cases where things
> > happen that you don't intend.
> 
> I was just reminded of it again.  I hope I won't be so careless again
> in the future.
> 
> 
> > I also perform full backups every night.  I may be paranoid, but that
> > doesn't mean that bad things can't happen ....
> 
> Do you have terabytes to back up?  Because that would be one of the
> issues I'd have to overcome.
> 
> Lots of pictures, video (HDV tape captures take up quite a bit),
> archived program files (well, I guess /this/ I could start to
> store this on DAT --- e.g. DDS-3, -4 -5, -6 --- and Ultrium ---
> LTO-1 and -3 --- tapes that I have) and more.  I did some cleaning
> of things I won't need or desire anymore.  Migration is always a
> good excuse to sort and clean things up...  I'm amazed at hoe time-
> consuming it is!  That's the only thing I really resent about it.

I really cannot advise DDS.  When we had DAT drives on test and 
production systems we were forever getting them swapped out for 
replacements.  I only had one tape shredded by them (yes, into little 
pieces), but others have reported other reliability problems.

Migrating a large amount of data can indeed take more time than you 
expect.  I did a similar exercise about a year ago with less than a 
terabyte and one of the estimates for a copy operation was over 72 
hours.  It was worth cancelling that one and experimenting with smaller 
files to see which was the fastest method for the transfer.  I ended up 
adopting a strategy of cutting it into manageable chunks so that during 
the day I could continue with normal work during the day and leave the 
large transfers running overnight.

You have my sympathies.  I tend to go over the top here - I am still 
finding bits of backups from what I did then which are tying up disk 
space. :-(

-- 
Paul Sture