Tape backup software recommendations

[Gérard Milmeister]

On Mon, 2005-05-30 at 10:22 -0400, Thom Paine wrote:
> On 5/30/05, Gérard Milmeister <gemi at bluewin.ch> wrote:
> > I am looking for backup software for DDS tapes. Apart from tar, star,
> > cpio and their relatives I found taper (taper.sourceforge.net), which
> > seems perfect for my needs (single system backup). However this software
> > hasn't had an update for over 2 years, and since it uses a non-standard
> > (i.e., non-tar, non-cpio) format for its backup, it is uncertain that
> > backups will be retrievable in the mid to far future. Suggestions for
> > current solutions similar to taper would be welcome.
> >
> 
> I use arkeia. It spans tapes, and there is a free version for linux
> users. If you just have a single drive with no library, you should be
> good to go. You have to purchase a licence if you have a library with
> a built in changer.

Thanks to all for the suggestions.
The free version Arkeia is indeed very capable (also a little
complicated: drivepacks, tapepacks, savepacks...). There is also a
simple C program to extract the archive in emergency cases. I would be
nice if there was an open source implementation using the same format
(arkeia has quite an ugly interface). At the moment I still use taper as
I am not sure that the binary only Arkeia will run after several kernel
and libc updates...

-- 
Gérard Milmeister
Langackerstrasse 49
CH-8057 Zürich