tar tape backup

[MikeL_4]

Can the tar command be used to back up a file system and be able to expand to multiple tapes or would another command be more effective when you know it will expand to multiple tapes ?

[Mel Burslan · Accepted solution]

It can span multiple tapes. Make sure you launch it from a terminal session and make sure it won't time out as it will communicate with you using this terminal when it is time to ask for a new tape.

of course there are better ways to do it. Starting with the fbackup utility going up to data parotector, legato or veritas. Take your pick

[Pupil_1]

It depends on what you are trying to backup. Tar will not be able to manage anything more than 2GB. So it depends on what you are trying to use with tar. If it's any files like .dbf which could be more than 2GB then tar is not the one !! May be fbackup is better !!

Please let us know what is that you are trying to tar .

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Tar will prompt the user when EOT is detected. As long as you are aware of its limitations, tar is a reasonable and portable archiving choice. Tar's chief limitation is the 2GiB maximum filesize limit although a patched version of HP's tar or Gnu tar will allow a maximum file size of 8GiB.

Fbackup allows you to list multiple devices so that when the first fills up, the second is used, and so on. That makes fbackup better for automated backups which span tapes BUT fbackup in not portable; it is HP-UX only. Fbackup does backup large files essentially w/o limit and is much faster than any of the other "free" choices.

[V.Manoharan]

Hi
tar command can be span on mutiple tapes. The disadvandage is that it can't take backup if the file size is more than 2GB.

some of the bakup utility is available like Data protector , Veritas Netbackup which is a price product. This will be useful if your Backup volume is huge . Otherwise you can use fbackup/tar utility depends upon ur setup.

Thanks and regards
V.Manoharan

[MikeL_4]

Thanks