Re:Tape still beats SSDs and hard drives when it comes to pr...
by adrian_b on Wednesday September 25, 2019 @07:36AM
(#21069697)
Restoring the index database from a tape would be needed only if the SSD where my database is normally located would become defective, which should be a very seldom event, especially if it is replicated on a few SSDs.
In my custom program & file database, I only use physical tape names, i.e. the names that I write on the labels of the cartridges. Either the program tells me what cartridge to load in the drive, or I inform it what cartridge I have loaded (e.g. for a new cartridge). I see no reason for a logical name. If I would ever copy a tape on another and I would discard the original tape, it would be trivial to substitute the name in the database.
Maybe for a large enterprise maintaining a comprehensive file database could be time consuming even in the best implementation, but I doubt it.
In my experience, keeping an up-to-date file database for about 120 TB of content that increases by about 10 to 20 GB per day still takes a negligible time.
While I have worked in a few large companies where a lot of data existed, in all small- and medium-sized companies (less than 100 computers) that I have seen there was less backup data than that (not counting things like standard disk images with the OS and with SW, which do not belong in periodic backups and which where shared, being identical for various classes of employees).
In my custom program & file database, I only use physical tape names, i.e. the names that I write on the labels of the cartridges. Either the program tells me what cartridge to load in the drive, or I inform it what cartridge I have loaded (e.g. for a new cartridge). I see no reason for a logical name. If I would ever copy a tape on another and I would discard the original tape, it would be trivial to substitute the name in the database.
Maybe for a large enterprise maintaining a comprehensive file database could be time consuming even in the best implementation, but I doubt it.
In my experience, keeping an up-to-date file database for about 120 TB of content that increases by about 10 to 20 GB per day still takes a negligible time.
While I have worked in a few large companies where a lot of data existed, in all small- and medium-sized companies (less than 100 computers) that I have seen there was less backup data than that (not counting things like standard disk images with the OS and with SW, which do not belong in periodic backups and which where shared, being identical for various classes of employees).