[mythtv-users] REMINDER: Back Up Your Database.

[Stephen P. Villano]

On 12/30/13, 11:51 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Stephen P. Villano" <stephen.p.villano at gmail.com>
>> Been where the other poster has been at home and worse, at two places
>> I worked at that failed to backup files that were later found to be
>> important.
>> Since then, I backup, that backup gets scooped into another backup
>> *and* as Andrew does, a backup goes to another networked server.
>>
>> Good old joke that is true:
>> How do you backup a SAN?
>> To another SAN.
> My Commercial Backup Rule:
>
> It's not "backed up", until it's on at least 4 pieces of media, in at 
> least 3 cities, in at least two states.  One copy is permitted to be
> spinning magnetic media; one copy is permitted to be consumer optical.
> Flash drives are Right Out.
>
> This of course means that cloud backup is your one spinning-magnetic,
> and implies that at least 2 copies must be on business-grade tape; DLT-IV
> or better; I generally recommend as much LTO as you can afford, these
> days.
>
> For my largest client in 1998, backing up to DC-600 tapes, it was:
>
> Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu
>
> Fri 1, Fri 2, Fri 3, [Fri 4]
>
> EOW 1, EOW 2, EOW 3, [EOW 4]
>
> EOQ 1, EOQ 2, EOQ 3
>
> EOY *before all closeouts* and EOY *after all closeouts*.
>
> Yes, that was 16 tapes (actually 20, since the day of week tapes were 
> all A/B'd), but it gave us lots of safety and flexibility.
>
> Friday tapes went out of building on Monday; monthly tapes went
> up to their Lecanto or Tampa office and vice versa.
>
> Really: back up your stuff, people.  :-)
>
> [ PS: I have tapes from that era that *still* restore ok, and I also once
> restored one that my boss threw into a gypsum wall so hard it *stuck*. ]
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra
DC-600 tapes, now that brings back fond memories!
No surprise on the restoring from one embedded in drywall. You could
hammer in nails with those old tapes!
I really have to get my DDS-3 tapes from my storage unit and get the old
tapes running again.
Right now, I'm exclusively on spinning magnetic, though most are all
RAID 5 or higher. Still, lose the controller or iron...

We used to offsite the dailies. At the least, a few buildings away from
the primary site. We also backed up across campus to spinning magnetic
RAID storage.
Other sites also backed up SAN to SAN, as well as to the warm site SAN.