From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-Id: <3C6012B0.5000409@promofinarsa.es> From: Jesus Manuel NAVARRO LOPEZ MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Re: [linux-lvm] Re: [lvm-devel] [ANNOUNCE] LVM reimplementationre ady for beta testing References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: linux-lvm-admin@sistina.com Errors-To: linux-lvm-admin@sistina.com Reply-To: linux-lvm@sistina.com List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Date: Tue Feb 5 11:13:02 2002 List-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format="flowed" To: linux-lvm@sistina.com Hi, James: James Hawtin wrote: >=20 > On Fri, 1 Feb 2002, Heinz J . Mauelshagen wrote: >=20 >=20 >>It is quite intersting how many people don't take backups even though >>almost everybody claims to know that backups are crucial and some of them >>know that they are still, even though they might have RAID in place. >> >> >=20 > I think the reason most people don't do backups is because, hard disk > drives are really big and really cheap. Tape drives are really expensive, > media is also expensive and frankly tapes are very small for the cost. > Effective backup can double the cost of a system and requires time to > manage it. >=20 Yes. That's true... as you say, for grandma's PC. Backups (and all the=20 other disaster/recovery plans) are defensive, so they *must* be=20 cost-effective solutions. *If* you really don't care loosing a week's=20 data or even all the data, and with low probability you just can go with=20 hard-drive backups or even without backups at all... if you *really*=20 know that there's not *if* you're going to loose data, but *when*, and=20 accept it. > For the "home" market its just to much. The only system just about It is too much *work*, not money: five to twelve zip "disks" (100/250MB=20 each) is usually more than enough for incremental backups. Well planned=20 you don't need full backups... you don't need full backups for programs=20 you already have in another media (like your programs' original CD's)=20 you don't need backups for cold-storable data (six month old MP3 you=20 just listen from time to time) you just burn a CD from time to time...=20 at the end only personal data is *needed* to be backuped and this is=20 *usually* able to fit on one/two zips. The problem is the time and the=20 savvyness to plan it (in advance). The same goes with any other=20 insurance system: for most people you just insurance if you're legally=20 enforced, or it's the "common" way (like the health care insurance in USA). ...But the other guy was talking about a *professional* environment. > affordable is DAT tape, DLT blanks are about double the cost for the > storage ammount. I bought a DDS4 drive for "home" use, 1 week after I got > it I had my laptop stolen, so it justified its cost pretty fast :-) A 60 > gig hard disk, costing 100 pounds requires 2-3 DSS4 tapes to backup At 15 > pounds each, one round of backups cost 1/3 of the cost of the disk > multiply that by the number of disks, add in the hassle factor of changing > tapes. Auto changers are nice, but alot more! For "PC" based systems the > backup costs are oftain higher than the price of the machine, and thats > hard for people to justify. >=20 Hard drives are *not* cheaper. Indeed they're more expensive by far!!! You seem to consider that a single copy on the same system can be=20 considered a backup, but it is not: *If you don't have incrementals for a variable amount of time you have=20 just crap *If your backup media is around the system to be protected you just have=20 crap So, for HDDs to be a *real* backup solution, you need as many HDDs as=20 you would have tapes (say 10 to 20) so you can have, let's say, daily=20 incrementals, placed in-house, weekly "bigs" somehow "near", and monthly=20 off-site. Now, tapes are cheaper than disks, so if you need to have the=20 same amount (more or less) disks will be more expensive... and,=20 remember, that, while statically-placed disks are more confiable than=20 tapes, that's not true as soon as you start moving them here and there.=20 Obviously you can go with PCMCIA disks, but they're *a lot* more=20 expensive. > If anyone suggests they use "hard drives" to back up I will scream, cost > that system just don't scale, and yup you have an old copy but do people > ever update it? Yes... when they get another hard drive... however before > that happens they have put the old on back into service because they > needed a little more space ;-) >=20 This is true too. > All in all, backup is expensive/slow, my sister/mom/dad ain't going to pay > that kind of money for home... For Work its slow, fine if your a sysadmin They're expensive *by definition* (just in the same way any other=20 insurance is: it doesn't *produce* anything). Anyway, probably your=20 mom's life doesn't deppend on data on her home PC, so it's fine going=20 with no backup at all, or burning a CD from time to time. > and that your job... If you are a sysadmin you probably don't get to do > bugets, your manager does, and they don't understand the cost and aways > want to cut corners to keep costs down, XXX is a "developement" system so > we don't need to back it up cos its not "production" etc etc. Store all > your data on the network file server, (which is aways full with p0rn) and > connected via a doggie network, taping 3 minutes to access the smallest > file, so people store data on the local machine, and forget to copy it > back to the network... >=20 Truly enough: idiocy doesn't pay. > This why people don't have backups in my book. >=20 And I'm with you. --=20 SALUD, Jes=EF=BF=BDs *** jesus_navarro@promofinarsa.es ***