Backups - was Re: 8mm data cartridges

DLT is great, I use it a lot, and we also use it at work. Very reliable from what I've seen, only time you run into issues is with the drive itself, and really, really worn out tapes. If possible, verify backups on another tape drive, or at least verify them - I had one tape drive that would seem to write just fine, and never report any errors. But the tapes wouldn't read back! A backup you can't read is, well, not backed up. Then again, we don't use DLT as an archive - just for daily backups. I have no idea how readable this DLTTape IV cartridge will be in 20 years. Burning DVD or CD's is nice and "archival" since you can't overwrite them, but beware that some cheap media isn't really good for more than a few years. Of course, we've had discussions about media, longevity and how critical it is to make backups many times before... So backup often, backup in different ways, verify backups and most importantly, actually backup! And if you need to be sure the data will be around for years to come, you need to keep it live - keep it on newer media, newer hard drives, whatever. If the data is _really_ crucial, consider punching it into tape. Unlike cards, tape can't get dropped and knocked out of order. It's slow to punch and read though, so I simply rigged my TeleType to run at 19200 baud. Hold on, the chad box is on fire again... -Ian