[Info-vax] The (now lost) future of Alpha.

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 08/25/2018 06:34 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2018-08-19 15:31, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> At the University we used tapes until it reached the point where a full
>> backup or restore would take more than 12 hours.  At that point we moved
>> to mirrored disks including one remote.
> 
> Which is fine, until you want to recover that file that was deleted a 
> while ago, at which point you realize that mirrored disks are not the 
> same thing as backups... Two different solutions, to two different 
> problems.
> 
>    Johnny
> 

They are when you take one set out of service at regular intervals
(like monthly) and store them away.  Disk drives are cheap.

For most people tapes aren't much good either as:
a) they never get tested
b) depending on the kind of tape they are not really reliable
c) as technology changes you find yourself having to keep a
    lot of old hardware around just in case you need to read
    one of those tapes.
d) after keeping the old hardware around you find, when you
    need it, the drive:
                        <a> no longer works
                        <b> is not supported on any of your
                            current hardware

Need I go on?   :-)

bill