Has anyone looked into the new LTFS on LTO-5 for tape backups? Any idea how this would work with ZFS? I''m presuming ZFS send / receive are not going to work. But it seems rather appealing to have the metadata properly with the data, and being able to browse files directly instead of having to rely on backup software, however nice tar may be. Has anyone used this with OpenSolaris, or have an opinion on how this would work in practice? Thanks! -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
"valrhona at gmail.com" <valrhona at gmail.com> wrote:> Has anyone looked into the new LTFS on LTO-5 for tape backups? Any idea how this would work with ZFS? I''m presuming ZFS send / receive are not going to work. But it seems rather appealing to have the metadata properly with the data, and being able to browse files directly instead of having to rely on backup software, however nice tar may be. Has anyone used this with OpenSolaris, or have an opinion on how this would work in practice? Thanks!What do you understand by "nice tar"? For a backup, you need reliable incrementals (you get this from star) and reliable multi-volume handling (this is what you also get from star). J?rg -- EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J?rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js at cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
Actually, no. I could care less about incrementals, and multivolume handling. My purpose is to have occasional, long-term archival backup of big experimental data sets. The challenge is keeping everything organized, and readable several years later, where I only need to recall a small subset of what''s on the tape. The idea that the tape has a browseable filesystem is therefore extremely useful in principle. Has anyone actually tried this with OpenSolaris? The LTFS websites I''ve seen only talk about Mac and Linux support, but if it''s supported on Linux, in principle the (open-source?) drivers should be portable, no? -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
On Wed, August 4, 2010 12:25, valrhona at gmail.com wrote:> Actually, no. I could care less about incrementals, and multivolume > handling. My purpose is to have occasional, long-term archival backup of > big experimental data sets. The challenge is keeping everything organized, > and readable several years later, where I only need to recall a small > subset of what''s on the tape. The idea that the tape has a browseable > filesystem is therefore extremely useful in principle. > > Has anyone actually tried this with OpenSolaris? The LTFS websites I''ve > seen only talk about Mac and Linux support, but if it''s supported on > Linux, in principle the (open-source?) drivers should be portable, no?I can understand the desire and convenience of a browsable file system, but I''d trust the long-term accessibility of the (POSIX) tar format more than most other things. Perhaps have one tape with tar, and other with this LTFS thing, so you have your bases covered (e.g., in case one tape is damaged, or if LTFS is just a buzzword/fad). I''m assuming you''re referring to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Tape_File_System If Linux and Mac (which can be considered a variant of FreeBSD) are covered, then it should technically be possible to modify it to support Solaris. I''m sure the authors of the software would be interested in patches (assuming it''s open-source).