The original message is as follows:
"Hello all!
> When the company that I work for started up a few years ago, the only tape
> drive that was used for the DEC Alpha systems was a TLZ6L-DA, 4mm tape
> drive. This was used for about 2 years before the DLT TZ885 tape drive was
> purchased, and we have one copy of about 20-30 permanent archive tapes on
> 4mm. Now whenever we make our archive backups, we put the info to 4mm and
> DLT (2 copies of DLT) tapes; one copy goes off site and one stays on site.
>
>
> What I want to do is put a copy of all of the 4mm tapes that were created
> before we got the DLT tape drive to DLT tapes. It really bothers me that
> we
> only have one copy of info that's supposed to be archived forever. We have
> used Networker to make almost all of our backups, and I'm not for certain
> what would be the best way to go about doing this. Does anyone have any
> suggestions?
>
> Thanks!"
>
I received lots of replies on this, and the suggestions included using the
dd command, using the NSR migration feature, using the tar and untar
commands, and using NSR's clone feature. I called Digital's NSR support on
this and they recommended that I use the NSR clone feature. We talked for
some time about it, mainly because I was afraid that in using this utility I
wouldn't be able to put more than one 4mm backup on a DLT tape, but you can.
I haven't tried it yet, but I was told that you can put many 4mm tape clones
on one DLT tape. The nice thing about it also is that NSR will NOT make
another copy of what's on the tape being cloned in the index database. In
the NSR admin guide, I was pointed to the Cloning Backup Volumes section
which describes everything in full.
Here is a copy of some of the responses which I received. (Thanks again
everyone!)
One way to make tape-to-tape copies is by using the 'dd' utility. You
can copy from your 4mm to the DLT tapes this way.
The syntax for it would be something like this:
dd if=/dev/nrmt0h of=/dev/nrmt1h bs=xxx
where 'if' = Input device, 'of' = output device, and 'bs' = block size
for the data blocks that were written to the tape.
Hope this helps,
Blake Roberts
UNIX System Administrator
HBS International, Inc. -- Bellevue, WA
blarob_at_hbsi.com
I don't know much about it, but I've read that Networker
has a feature to clone tapes. It is probably intended
for making offsite backup copies. I don't know whether
it is intended to work so long after the original backup
has been made.
If you're using Networker (Save & Restore), then the best way to make copies
is to Clone the old volumes. Initialize some new tapes, put them into the
"Default Clone" volume group, then from the GUI (nwadmin) pull down under
"Media", select "Clone Volume", pick an old 4mm volume from the list and
click the "Clone" button.
I've never done it exactly this way myself, but that's what I'd try first.
--CHRis
============================================================================
=
Chris H. Ruhnke Phone: (314)233-7314
IBM Global Services M/S S306-6340 FAX : (314)234-2262
325 J.S. McDonnell Blvd Email:
i769646_at_smrs013.mdc.com
Hazelwood, MO 63042
Thinking simple here, so use your imagination...
untar 4mm redirected to tar on the DLT.
Hope that makes sense, it SHOULD work but you might want to verify all
the originals first.
You might also want to test this idea on some very small tar's first...
Nathan J Grass, MV-STAR Technical Support
Utility Translation Systems, Inc. Raleigh, NC
919 876 2600 x2216 Fax: 919.876.4001
nathang_at_uts.itron.com / zaz_at_null.net
Hi
> certain what would be the best way to go about doing this. Does anyone
> have any suggestions?
1) Buy a second 4mm tape and clone the tapes with networker.
2) Buy a CDR and archive to CD's or MO's, not tapes ( sorry, but I've had a
bad
experience with 2 years of PhD research data and a chewed up 4mm tape! )
Does the NSR Archiver know about writing out to CDR's?
Brenden
--
Brenden Phillips
Systems Programmer, Computing Services, Massey University,
Palmerston North, New Zealand.
Received on Wed Jun 24 1998 - 21:20:09 NZST