Tape Backups are NEVER Reliable - EVER

On Fri, 02 Jul 2004 03:47:08 GMT, "Ron Reaugh"
wrote:


"Malcolm Weir" wrote in message

Off-line, on-site is a typical tape archive.

On that we agree with the thread title.

Yet sadly for your bias, there is a difference between archive and
backup (i.e. you are confused) and your contention that there is such
a thing as a "reliable" backup *or* archive is laughable!

In the real world (i.e. the place you don't inhabit, Ron), _nothing_
is "reliable", it's all varying degrees of unreliability.

And *some* tapes are more reliable than *some* optical, and *some*
magnetic disk solutions are more reliable than *some* tapes.

But only a fool would conclude that *all* tape is more reliable than
*all* disk.

Hi Ron.

Malc.

In article ,
Ron Reaugh wrote:
"Malcolm Weir" wrote in message
news
Ron is mangling the fact that for archive purposes, the physical
characteristics of WORM opticals have resulted in that media being
approved as a tamper-proof archive.

Nonsense as anyone who reads this whole thread can see for themselves. TDK
says that their CD-R are good for over 50 years.

That statement does not contradict Malcolm's.

--
I've seen things you people can't imagine. Chimneysweeps on fire over the roofs
of London. I've watched kite-strings glitter in the sun at Hyde Park Gate. All
these things will be lost in time, like chalk-paintings in the rain. `-_-'
Time for your nap. | Peter da Silva | Har du kramat din varg, idag? 'U`

Malcolm Weir wrote:

"Rod Reaugh" wrote:

"Malcolm Weir" wrote:


Tapes are NOT for long term storage. Only some opticals have been
legally approved.

Errr... false.

Ron is mangling the fact that for archive purposes, the physical
characteristics of WORM opticals have resulted in that media being
approved as a tamper-proof archive.

Nonsense as anyone who reads this whole thread can see for themselves. TDK
says that their CD-R are good for over 50 years.

Poor Ron, he gets so confused! One might assume, from reading the
above, that TDK's CD-Rs had been "legally approved"!

Which is, of course, false.

But tape has been approved by people like the National Media Lab for
long-term storage.

Wacko, they have nothing to do with the government

Errr... the US Government provided the funding for them, under the
National Technology Alliance program, which was a DoD/CIA think (which
became a NIMA thing, and is now a NGA thing, but all the players
remained the same, just the acronyms changed).

but are a tape manufacturer.

And TDK *isn't* a CD-ROM manufacturer????

So Ron would have us believe that TDK's claim that their CD-Rs are
"good for over 50 years" is somehow valid, and the claims of the
government-funded NML research managed by 3M/Imation are not.

Hmmm...

This is like four separate issues, in just the last few days, in which
Ronnie has completely embarrassed himself.

Still, anyone who believes that CD-R is magically stable (despite
being dye-based) while magnetic tape isn't stable has fundamentally
failed to understand the issues involved. Neither are stable... but
both can be made pretty darn good *if* you treat them right!

Also I notice that their controversial pages on media lifetime
aren't on their website any longer.

The NTA restructured about 2 or 3 years ago, with the NML, the NCAT,
and whatever-it-was-called-at-Sarnoff (NIDL, I think) being rolled up
into a new entity managed by a single corporation (as opposed to three
separate management contracts).

So the government-funded NML ceased to exist at that time. But their
research hasn't gone away, even though their funding source has.

Sorry, Ron, you'll have to get a clue!

Don't hold your breath. Rod^Hn's an idiot.

Malcolm Weir wrote:
On Fri, 02 Jul 2004 02:19:19 GMT, "Ron Reaugh"
wrote:


"Malcolm Weir" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 19 Jun 2004 21:14:47 GMT, "Ron Reaugh"
wrote:

[ Snip ]

In short, I need some type of recommendation, in writing, in some
type of white paper, from some type of credible sources, that
SDLT tape backup drives, at least for the purpose of long term
archiving

Tapes have NEVER been considered a viable "long term archiving"
medium.

Neither, though, has anything else, except for paper.

No, some opticals.

Nope. While the media may be (relatively) stable, the mechanisms to
process that media is the problem! How many 12-inch WORM drives do
you have?

Tape is, and has been proven to be, better than most things, and
particularly better than disk whose failure modes tend to result in
massive data inaccessibility more often than those of tape.

However, this issue is not tape-vs-anything else, it's on-line and
on-site vs. off-line and off-site.

Not these days as on-line and off-site is becoming viable.

It's been "viable" for decades, for some value of "viable".

Hey what about off-line and on-site...there must be a market for
that or is that called DAT.

Off-line, on-site is a typical tape archive.

Reliability is always the sum of all such factors and any backup
strategy should look more towards the least common
denominator...Murphy....an automatic corrollary to Murphiy's law
is that tapes are unrelaible. The proof of that is the incredible
cycle strategies that have developed over the years for tape
backups. That comes from the fact that too frequently the tape
isn't usable for any one of a number of reasons.

Substitute "backup medium" for tape and there would be something
useful in the above...

Nope, I got it right with "tape".

If you had much of a clue (which is debatable), you'd understand that
*any* backup medium is inherently "unreliable", in the sense that it
can (and does) fail. All you are trying to argue is that one subtype
of medium is intrinsically worse than others, which is obviously
nonsense given the different possible implementations of that subtype.

For example, no-one with any integrity would claim that, say, Zip
disks were a "reliable" media, but it takes a certain amount of
ignorance to extrapolate from that data point to the conclusion that
removable disks are unreliable (which is what you've done with tape).

Add to the mix the issue of undiscovered problems, and you are
*beginning* to touch on why we have complex backup medium strategies.


Here here. Well said!

Ron Reaugh wrote:
"Malcolm Weir" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 20:33:16 GMT, "Ron Reaugh"
wrote:


"mschlack" wrote in message
om...

-snip

One thing to clarify: do you have both restore and archive needs?
Restore would be to rebuild after a disaster or after losing or
corrupting specific files. Archive would be for
long term retention -- rarely used data that's taking up space
otherwise but would need to be occasionally mounted at some future
point (like parts drawings for obsolete products). If you're truly
archiving, then tape probably is a must (or optical), since the
reliability of data that's never read on disk drives can't be
assumed for many years (those little old bits can flip on you).
SDLT is a
solid choice, in any event.

Tapes are NOT for long term storage. Only some opticals have been
legally approved.

Errr... false.

Ron is mangling the fact that for archive purposes, the physical
characteristics of WORM opticals have resulted in that media being
approved as a tamper-proof archive.

Nonsense as anyone who reads this whole thread can see for
themselves. TDK says that their CD-R are good for over 50 years.

So that means they have been "legally approved" ?

"Carl Farrington" wrote in message
...
Ron Reaugh wrote:
"Malcolm Weir" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 20:33:16 GMT, "Ron Reaugh"
wrote:


"mschlack" wrote in message
om...

-snip

One thing to clarify: do you have both restore and archive needs?
Restore would be to rebuild after a disaster or after losing or
corrupting specific files. Archive would be for
long term retention -- rarely used data that's taking up space
otherwise but would need to be occasionally mounted at some future
point (like parts drawings for obsolete products). If you're truly
archiving, then tape probably is a must (or optical), since the
reliability of data that's never read on disk drives can't be
assumed for many years (those little old bits can flip on you).
SDLT is a
solid choice, in any event.

Tapes are NOT for long term storage. Only some opticals have been
legally approved.

Errr... false.

Ron is mangling the fact that for archive purposes, the physical
characteristics of WORM opticals have resulted in that media being
approved as a tamper-proof archive.

Nonsense as anyone who reads this whole thread can see for
themselves. TDK says that their CD-R are good for over 50 years.

So that means they have been "legally approved" ?

Nope, as I said before only some opticals(worms I think) have been
approved.

On Thu, 08 Jul 2004 20:31:05 GMT, "Ron Reaugh"
wrote:

Tapes are NOT for long term storage. Only some opticals have been
legally approved.

Errr... false.

Ron is mangling the fact that for archive purposes, the physical
characteristics of WORM opticals have resulted in that media being
approved as a tamper-proof archive.

Nonsense as anyone who reads this whole thread can see for
themselves. TDK says that their CD-R are good for over 50 years.

So that means they have been "legally approved" ?

Nope, as I said before only some opticals(worms I think) have been
approved.

I.e. Ronny has mangled the fact that for archive purposes (etc.)

Ronny has problems largely resulting from his (low-end) view of the
industry. He would have no clue how to manage a petabyte archive, but
that doesn't prevent him from making definitive statements on the
matter.

Nor does it prevent him from aggressively applying double standards,
e.g. by citing TDK as an authority for their own products while
simultaneously dismissing the government funded research of the NML on
the basis that the NML was managed and run by 3M/Imation.

Malc.

Malcolm Weir writes:

Nor does it prevent him from aggressively applying double standards,
e.g. by citing TDK as an authority for their own products while
simultaneously dismissing the government funded research of the NML on
the basis that the NML was managed and run by 3M/Imation.

.... who, for what it's worth (not much), have produced not only tape media,
but magneto-optical and various CD/CD-R media over the years.

Anyway, Ron remains unwilling to listen & unable to understand.

-- Anton