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Retrospect revisited

Started by DigiCorn, January 10, 2012, 09:37:09 AM

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DigiCorn

Last Friday my AIT tape drive refused to eject a tape. I disassembled the machine yesterday only to find that the tape had physically snapped. There's 300+ jobs archived on that tape and no redundant backup. I think I can get it repaired and the data saved from a repair facility, but now my Retrospect library is not going to have proper reference as the data will be archived to a new tape.

Looks like I finally forced the boss' hand and he agreed that today we're going to go to Fry's and build a new backup system. The plan is to buy the latest version of Retrospect, several 2TB externals and a new blu-ray burner supported by Retrospect. I will then have to copy the contents of all 28 of our AITs to the externals and rearchive with Retrospect to blu-ray. Then, burn a second copy to store off site and possibly a third copy to store in the safe here. The system will then backup all data nightly to one of the externals, and we will swap externals every few days or weekly, storing one off site so the worst we will do is lose a week's worth of work should something go wrong.

Is there a better way to do this, or do I have it pretty dialed in?
"There's been a lot of research recently on how hard it is to dislodge an impression once it's been implanted in someone's mind. (This is why political attack ads don't have to be true to be effective. The other side can point out their inaccuracies, but the voter's mind privileges the memory of the original accusation, which was juicier than any counterargument ever could be.)"
― Johnny Carson

"Selling my soul would be a lot easier if I could just find it."
– Nikki Sixx

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
― Ernest Hemingway

Farabomb

I'm a cheap bastard and am not a fan of Retrospect. I'd get at least 2 external drives, use Karen's powertools to backup (full then incrementals) and rotate the drives out weekly. The optical backup is up to you, I don't trust them.
Speed doesn't kill, rapidly becoming stationary is the problem

I'd rather have stories told than be telling stories of what I could have done.

Quote from: Ear on April 06, 2016, 11:54:16 AM
Quote from: Farabomb on April 06, 2016, 11:39:41 AMIt's more like grip, grip, grip, noise, then spin and 2 feet in and feel shame.
I once knew a plus-sized girl and this pretty much describes teh secks. :rotf:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
         —Benjamin Franklin

My other job

Joe

Quote from: Farabomb on January 10, 2012, 10:16:59 AMI'm a cheap bastard and am not a fan of Retrospect. I'd get at least 2 external drives, use Karen's powertools to backup (full then incrementals) and rotate the drives out weekly. The optical backup is up to you, I don't trust them.

Ditto.

Or you can use Time Machine or CCC on a Mac or Windows backup, all FREE, on a PC which works great. I've never been a fan of Retrospect.
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

David

be careful, some older versions of Retrospect don't play well with the newer versions.
I had a tape drive die that we used Vers 4 of Retrospect on (Mac OS9).
I didn't want to restore all the jobs on the tapes so I thought I could import the old library and then have it on the new version.

but...My newer version (v6) doesn't recognize the older version library.
I had to repair the drive. Cost us about $300 US.

Prepress guy - Retired - Working from home
Livin' la Vida Loca

DigiCorn

Well aware of this david, which is why my plan is to restore all AIT to externals HDs and write to blu-ray via Retrospect. My plan hopes to accomplish three things:

1 - gets rid of AIT tape (we'll put this and the old Retrospect server with the tape drive in storage)
2 - creates a less expensive redundant backup (a few $$$ for blu-ray vs. $40+ for AIT tape)
3 - new Restrospect creates a new archive library of the new blu-rays and not the old AIT tapes, so old library files are not needed

My old archive library file is f**ked anyway because with losing this tape, even if/when I recover it, it will need to be rearchived and the archive library will think it still exists on the old tape
"There's been a lot of research recently on how hard it is to dislodge an impression once it's been implanted in someone's mind. (This is why political attack ads don't have to be true to be effective. The other side can point out their inaccuracies, but the voter's mind privileges the memory of the original accusation, which was juicier than any counterargument ever could be.)"
― Johnny Carson

"Selling my soul would be a lot easier if I could just find it."
– Nikki Sixx

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
― Ernest Hemingway

gnubler

Quote from: Joe on January 10, 2012, 11:58:52 AM
Quote from: Farabomb on January 10, 2012, 10:16:59 AMI'm a cheap bastard and am not a fan of Retrospect. I'd get at least 2 external drives, use Karen's powertools to backup (full then incrementals) and rotate the drives out weekly. The optical backup is up to you, I don't trust them.

Ditto.

Or you can use Time Machine or CCC on a Mac or Windows backup, all FREE, on a PC which works great. I've never been a fan of Retrospect.

I use CCC on all my Macs.

For cataloging I use a freebie app that came with my install of Toast. It works, but usually I just search using the Mac's Finder.
Hicks • Cross • Carlin • Kinison • Parker • Stone •  Colbert • Hedberg • Stanhope • Burr

"As much as I'd like your guns I prefer your buns." - The G

Quote from: pspdfppdfx on December 06, 2012, 05:03:51 PM
So,  :drunk3: i send the job to the rip with live transparecy (v 1.7 or whatever) and it craps out with a memory error.

Member #14 • Size 5 • PH8 Unit 7 • Paranoid Misanthropic Doomsayer • Printing & Drinking Since 1998 • doomed ©2011 david

David

sounds like a lot of work.
If your library is anything close to mine, it would not be as easy. I have approx 1000 ait tapes (maybe more, I've never counted them). My robotic carousel holds about 90 tapes in it.
We have ours set to do Incrementals 4 times a day as well as archive once a month. So, if one of my archive tapes goes south, I still have the files on Incremental.
Prepress guy - Retired - Working from home
Livin' la Vida Loca

DigiCorn

#7
We don't have an X-Serve; we have a Windows 2003 server, so while the Mac advice is nice, all my files are stored on a RAID array.

We have 28 AIT tapes, and when I first started our original file server took a shit and I had to build a new one. When I redid the system, I had to re-library the tapes. It took about 4 days. I guarantee it will take longer than that to extract them and rearchive. We've slowed down a bit; it will get me hours.
"There's been a lot of research recently on how hard it is to dislodge an impression once it's been implanted in someone's mind. (This is why political attack ads don't have to be true to be effective. The other side can point out their inaccuracies, but the voter's mind privileges the memory of the original accusation, which was juicier than any counterargument ever could be.)"
― Johnny Carson

"Selling my soul would be a lot easier if I could just find it."
– Nikki Sixx

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
― Ernest Hemingway

Farabomb

I don't understand, if you backup to HDDs why the need for retrospect? I can understand if you still want a optical backup (I'd just use HDDs and rotate, again) but if you have decent directory structure on the externals it should be easy to find what you need. Removes the need to spend the time creating a new library in retrospect, restore everything to the drives and back them up.
Speed doesn't kill, rapidly becoming stationary is the problem

I'd rather have stories told than be telling stories of what I could have done.

Quote from: Ear on April 06, 2016, 11:54:16 AM
Quote from: Farabomb on April 06, 2016, 11:39:41 AMIt's more like grip, grip, grip, noise, then spin and 2 feet in and feel shame.
I once knew a plus-sized girl and this pretty much describes teh secks. :rotf:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
         —Benjamin Franklin

My other job

DigiCorn

Would like to have a "permanent" backup in place. We pull from archives all the time. All the data on those tapes would fill those HDs. We've had one RAID 5 array and 2 external HDs fail in the past few years. There's no way I am going to trust an external HD to hold all my data. As far as backups go, we will run nightly backups to the HDs, but for permanent archiving we will have the old AIT tapes in storage, a set of blu-rays also offsite and a set of blu-rays onsite.
"There's been a lot of research recently on how hard it is to dislodge an impression once it's been implanted in someone's mind. (This is why political attack ads don't have to be true to be effective. The other side can point out their inaccuracies, but the voter's mind privileges the memory of the original accusation, which was juicier than any counterargument ever could be.)"
― Johnny Carson

"Selling my soul would be a lot easier if I could just find it."
– Nikki Sixx

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
― Ernest Hemingway

Joe

I still maintain hard drives are more reliable than an optical disk though I know one gentleman that will disagree with that.
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

DigitalCrapShoveler

Member #285 - Civilian

gnubler

Hicks • Cross • Carlin • Kinison • Parker • Stone •  Colbert • Hedberg • Stanhope • Burr

"As much as I'd like your guns I prefer your buns." - The G

Quote from: pspdfppdfx on December 06, 2012, 05:03:51 PM
So,  :drunk3: i send the job to the rip with live transparecy (v 1.7 or whatever) and it craps out with a memory error.

Member #14 • Size 5 • PH8 Unit 7 • Paranoid Misanthropic Doomsayer • Printing & Drinking Since 1998 • doomed ©2011 david

DigitalCrapShoveler

Hey, I watched "I Saw the Devil" last night. Thoroughly entertaining... I especially liked the knife fight in the cab and the Achilles tendon cutting scene.
Member #285 - Civilian

Joe

Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.