Hi all, I've put RHEL on my system today, with the free account for small users. My goal is to set up an LTO tape drive for archiving and backups. Has anyone here done this and has any tips and pointers? Pretty much feeling a little out of my depth here, but I want to learn! Thanks.
New to Red Hat - making a backup system
- Thread starter ThinkPad
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Yes, you can use an LTO tape drive with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9.5 and its clones. LTO (Linear Tape-Open) drives are generally compatible with Linux systems, including RHEL, as long as you have the appropriate drivers and software installed.
Here are a few steps to ensure compatibility:
Check for Drivers: Ensure that the necessary drivers for your specific LTO tape drive model are available and installed on your system. Most LTO drives use standard SCSI or SAS interfaces, which are well-supported in Linux.
Install Backup Software: Use backup software that supports LTO tape drives. Popular options include Bacula, Amanda, and IBM Spectrum Protect (formerly Tivoli Storage Manager).
Configure the System: You may need to configure your system to recognize the tape drive. This can involve editing configuration files and ensuring that the device is correctly identified by the operating system.
Test the Setup: After installation, perform a test backup and restore to ensure everything is working correctly.
Here are a few steps to ensure compatibility:
Check for Drivers: Ensure that the necessary drivers for your specific LTO tape drive model are available and installed on your system. Most LTO drives use standard SCSI or SAS interfaces, which are well-supported in Linux.
Install Backup Software: Use backup software that supports LTO tape drives. Popular options include Bacula, Amanda, and IBM Spectrum Protect (formerly Tivoli Storage Manager).
Configure the System: You may need to configure your system to recognize the tape drive. This can involve editing configuration files and ensuring that the device is correctly identified by the operating system.
Test the Setup: After installation, perform a test backup and restore to ensure everything is working correctly.
you actually found a working tape drive? I have not seen those since 1992. I found it easier and cheaper not to mention less mentally taxing to just backup to another SSD or flash drive using redo. or even grsync. Even in the 90s the tape drive was not very reliable.
Yup. Tape is still in use today. They're still making the hardware.
It's not as
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As said above, it's still used today. At work we back up two servers to LTO, it's still a current method. SSDs etc aren't suitable for cold archive storage, so we use tapes which are.
The latest LTO standard is LTO9 which 18TB native and up to 45TB compressed, but many servers in use today are still using LTO3, 4, 5 right up to the latest, really of course depends on how much you need and if you wish to aggregate your archive.
theLegionWithin
Active Member
at a previous job we were still using LTO5 tapes about 10 years ago or so. that's neat how the LTO standard is still a thing, I thought the LTO5 drives/tapes were pretty slick.
I found tape backups to be difficult. especially in the windows world I learned them in. You had to install the OS and the tape drivers etc then restore the backup. I prefer the method like with redo. I don't have to install anything. I just boot from usb drive and restore backup. no extra steps.
going from blank replacement drive to full working
1... boot with USB
2... Select restore
3... select what to restore
4... hit ok and wait.
tape drive was
1.. install OS (long step)
2.. install drivers for tape
3... install tape backup software
4.. start software
5... select restore
6.. select what to restore
7.. hit ok and pray
is this still accurate or have they improved the tape drive thing? I also recall how slow tape was and easy to damage.
going from blank replacement drive to full working
1... boot with USB
2... Select restore
3... select what to restore
4... hit ok and wait.
tape drive was
1.. install OS (long step)
2.. install drivers for tape
3... install tape backup software
4.. start software
5... select restore
6.. select what to restore
7.. hit ok and pray
is this still accurate or have they improved the tape drive thing? I also recall how slow tape was and easy to damage.
Hmm... It should be trivial to have an image hosted on tape and only need a boot disk to get to it.
That said, I wouldn't suggest it. You're faster doing it the way you were doing it. The read speeds are much higher than you'd get with tape - but it would be possible. You could even put a self-booting Acronis image on a tape, if you so desired. (Again, I'd not do so.)
Tape these days is delegated to cold (or vault) storage. When your business requires data retention for 20 years, it goes onto tape and gets sent to one of those warehouses built in an old salt mine. The cloud isn't reliable enough and is too expensive for that, plus it'd be a ton of bandwidth - which is expensive in and of itself.
In the enterprise sector, storage is done in tiers. If you need it immediately, it's on the main cluster of servers. If you need it in an hour, it's on the NAS. If you need it in a week, it's on servers at the main office. If you need it for a government audit, it's in cold storage and may take an entire month to retrieve.
While that may seem silly, it's also for good reason that your average desk jockey doesn't have access to those files. That whole 'least permissions' thing is an important concept even outside of security clearance.
Something like that, at any rate...
I've expected tape storage to die any time now, but it just keeps on going.
I do it a different way. OS installation and all programs relatively small in comparison, so that drive gets a clonezilla, restores are very quick. The tapes are used for archiving backups of data running into many TBs.
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