how would you backup 1TB of data to dvds?

[Marko Vojinovic]

On Sunday 10 February 2008 21:54, Axel Thimm wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 10, 2008 at 03:47:04PM -0600, Frank Cox wrote:
> > On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:42:10 +0200
> >
> > Axel Thimm <Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net> wrote:
> > > > How would you backup 1TB of data in a server with 4x 250GB drives all
> > > > mounted as separate mount points to a set of dvds using tools
> > > > available in fedora, centos or rhel?
> > >
> > > Since this thread on this interesting problem (really!) already grows
> > > quite large and I'm sure there will be lots of interesting suggestions
> > > and solution, would you mind posting a summary on your findings? Maybe
> > > even putting online into a wiki or similar?
> >
> > I thought the concensus was, if you have 1TB of data to back up then
> > don't do it with DVD's.
>
> You mean the whole thread is about dividing 1000 though 4? As you can
> see from my request I don't have the time to wade through the thread,
> but I would assume that people would suggest using alternative backup
> media than DVD or at least give a solution for smaller capacities.
>
> > You don't need a wiki page to post one sentence:  "Don't do that with a
> > volume of data that large because it's both impractical and unreliable."
>
> You probably don't need a thread of dozens of replies to estabish that
> either. I still hope there is some juice in the fruit.

Well, there were several alternative methods offered to the OP which ranged 
from RAID 1 to cheap tape drives on eBay, there were discussions and opinions 
on reliability of all those, and it went all the way to experiences with 
repairing a car alternator without proper tools, ways that fire safe works, 
and such. Oh, and there was a moral discussion on whether the list should 
give a straight answer to the OP on how to do it, or try to suggest that he 
doesn't really want to do a backup of 1TB to dvds whilst risking that the OP 
might get offended by such approach.

There were also some clear-cut answers like bacula or dar, if you really plan 
to actually burn 1TB of data to dvds (on a regular basis?).

But all in all, it boils down to what Frank Cox just said (and some people 
have been repeating from the very start of the thread) --- don't do that, 
it's impractical and unreliable. Use RAID, use usb hard drives, use networked 
fileserver or use tape drives. Don't use dvds.

Best, :-)
Marko