Tape Backup

[xendistar]

I am slowly getting an old server up and running, now its the turn of the Tape Drive to have my attention. The tape drive in question is a HP C1537A DDS 3 tape drive unit, it is seen by the systen during boot up (listed in dmesg)and given the ID st0, but it is not shown in /etc/fstab I have googled and found several backup application and some backup scripts but nothing about getting the tape drive running

So my question is what do I need to install to get it up and running. My machine spec and distro are listed below.

Debian Stable with 2.6.8-2-686-smp kernel
KDE 3.3 (because I was brought up on gui and not cli)
The tape drive sits on the same raid card as the disks (3x35gb in raid 5)

Thanks in advance

Tim

[falko]

I think you must use the mount command to mount the drive. See man mount for more information.

[xendistar]

Found what I needed, it was a small program called mt-st, this gives me access to the tape drive, I now have to choose what program I want to run the backups.

Thanks

Tim

[kevinch]

Ever wondered what 8mm tapes are? Well, of course not! If you don't need computer backup, you don't need to know, but if you do use computer backup, you probably already know...

So what are 8mm Tapes (http://www.tape4backup.com/8mm-tapes.php) (or Data 8 (http://www.tape4backup.com/8mm-tapes.php) if you like)?... for all those people who just wanna know...

Well, most of us have seen, touched and used VHS cassettes, the ones most people rent from Video Rental stores and play on their VCR or video cassette players, to watch movies, cartoons and drama series. Some of us have even recorded home made movies on them... But anyways... these 8mm Tapes (http://www.tape4backup.com/8mm-tapes.php) are pretty much like modified versions of those and are used to store or backup data from your PC. Most of the modern Tape (http://www.tape4backup.com)cartridges are evolved versions of the old 8mm tape cartridges. In fact, if you have owned a personal computer in the 1980s you would probably remember that some of them worked on tape cartridges pretty similar to audio tapes commonly
(now not so commonly) used in walkmans and cassette players. In fact, most of the ones used for backup were and are interchangeable for use with audio cassette players and boom-boxes.

Well, that's all for today. Will be back soon, later...You can contact me at:sales@tape4backup.com