[lug] Backup media and programs opinions?

[Ferdinand Schmid]

Sean Reifschneider wrote:
<snip>
> Why can't you skip bad blocks?  tar will re-sync if things go weird and
> will start searching for the next file header.  You may run into trouble if
> you are in the middle of a tar file when this occurs though, and would have
> to do a manual override in that case.

I should have been more specific:  When restoring with tar you don't know if you restored 
garbage when running into a bad block.  You can still forward to the beginning of another 
block, assuming that you did block padding.  Some software (e.g. Arkeia and some Windows 
products like Veritas backup exec) don't do block padding in order to save space.  In that 
case you are lost and can't even skip to the next tape volume.

Thanks for clarifying this,
Ferdinand


-- 
Ferdinand Schmid
Architectural Energy Corporation
Celebrating 20 Years of Improving Building Energy Performance
http://www.archenergy.com