Backup Software Solutions

[sean2e30]

Hey Guys,

I'm trying to find software that will let me mount a backup tape drive so it mimics a hard drive mount. I just want to output files to the mount point. Do you guys know of anything out there for this?

Thanks,

-Sean

[Irithori]

You cannout mount a tape drive as a directory.

For the rest, see "tar" and "mt"
Linux Tape Backup With mt And tar Command Howto

Some backup solutions build on them (e.g. amanda)
others implement their own way of accessing tapes (bacula, etc)

[Rubberman]

It would certainly be possible to create a driver that allows a tape to simulate a hard drive, albeit a REALLY slow one. Give the amount of rewinding and seeking that would have to go on, it would also result in a very low life-expectancy for the tape. Given the low cost of very large hard drives these days - about $0.08 / GB ($120 USD for 1.5TB 7200rpm Seagate Baracuda drives), and the performance of sata2 (esata) controllers, I don't even consider tape any longer. I use the drives like tape for image and incremental backups by using an esata2 quick release enclosure with 1.5TB drives. To unmount/replace drive/remount the device takes about 15 seconds. The longest procedure is the initialization of the disc, especially if I do a bad_blocks check on it when formatting it. By using a non-journaling file system (ext2 for example), I can maximize the thruput to the drive. Since it is a backup device, journaling is not really required. In any case, this allows me to use any number of tools to backup my data, either local or remote.