How does a tape backup work ?

[quant007]

Hi,

I purchased a dell server some time ago and have a 40GB hard disk and a tape drive too. I think it would be good for me to do some backup of my hard disk from time to time but I have no clue how a tape drive works. If anyone could give me a brief intro or redirect me to articles, that would be wonderful. Here are some outstanding questions that I have:

1) How does the tape drive work ? Is it like any other normal drive that I can read/write, drag/drop into ?
2) What if something does happen to my hard disk, how do I recover it using the tape drive ?
3) Does a tape drive do a copy of my hard disk and it's file structure and hence, does it have to be bigger than 40GB ?

Thanks.

Quant007

 

[crypticlogin]

1) The tape may or may not act as a drive in your operating system, and that is specific to the model and backup software. Just remember that tape is serial read and write and usually takes a while to access so using it as a regular drive is very time consuming.

2) A good backup software package will have some kind of emergency recover from tape if you boot from some pre-made floppy. Otherwise, you would need to reinstall the OS and backup from there.

3) There are different types of backups, but the two most common types are daily/incremental and full backups. Daily/Incremental backups only the files added and/or changed over the last 1-3 days. Full backups are less frequent but dump the entire drive (or selected parts of it). The choice is dependent on your setup and environment.

Hope this helps you get started or have an idea of what to look for.

 

[bozo1]

1. You cannot drag/drop to it. You need to use a backup program that will backup the files, partitions or disks you designate. You use the same program to restore what you need.

2. If something does happen, normally you reinstall your operating system and backup program then do a restore right on top of your OS and that will put all of your files back, registry, etc. Some 3rd party programs have the ability to do an easy restore (boot off CD or floppy) but this is usually a fairly expensive add-on option.

3. The tape drive backs up what you tell it - this can be just certain directories or your entire drive. Not knowing what size tape drive you have, it may take more than one tape to backup. Your backup program will take care of this.

-- If you are running NT 4 or Windows 2000, just use NTBackup that is built-in. This will support most all tape drives. The backup program in Win98 supports some tape drives but not many. If you want, you can get a 3rd party backup program like Backup Exec Personal Edition but it does not support DLT drives if that is what yours is and is not much better than the program built into W2K if that is what you are using.

Edit: Damn! Too slow! hehe

 

[quant007]

Thanks guys !!