A better backup (was: Re: Question re: splitting files)

[dtm12@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Daniel Martin at cush)]

hermit@BayView.COM (William R. Ward) writes:

> Charles Briscoe-Smith <cpbs@debian.org> writes:
> > % tar xvMf /dev/fd0
> > 
> > Apart from when a disk goes bad (obviously), I've never had any trouble
> > with this.
> 
> Stick a 'z' in the tar options to get gzip (fewer floppies!)....
> 
> --Bill.

Well, this would be fine if tar would accept both the z and M options
at the same time; unfortunately, it won't. (at least the version of
tar in bo won't)

Also, a one-bit error can ruin all files recorded after the error -
not a great idea.  I really am surprised that there's no standard
backup method for debian that:
1) backs up across multiple volumes
2) provides checksums for each file, and
3) allows compression on a file-by-file basis (i.e. allows creation of 
an uncompressed archive of compressed files, which is less susceptible 
to corruption than a compressed archive of uncompressed files)


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