>Costas,
>
>For less than $200, why not just get another hard disk and mount it on one of those "sleds" that let you hot-plug the drive? I'm pretty sure that Linux will let you mount/unmount a device without rebooting (unlike Windnose).

Sure will.


>Throw in some TAR compression, a CRON job, and you've got a highly reliable backup.

Excellent suggestion. Automatic, at night, when no one is on line. Run a scrpt that mounts the HD up, tars to the HD, and umounts it. It's as good as Norton's Ghost 6.5 but more transparent.
JLK


>
>As for tape-oriented backups, I got tired of the tape format changing every couple of years, making it likely after four or five years that your old tapes would have no drive they would run on. Hard drives, on the other hand, have gotten bigger and faster, but a 100MB ATA drive used for backup 10 years ago will still read on a brand new PC.


The big complaint I have with tape backups is that during their creation the tape can be stretched or damaged, and the restore is doomed. Or the rw heads were not cleaned or improperly cleaned and damaged the tape. I once had a client destroy FIVE new tapes trying to create a backup, before they called me. One q-tip stick, 90% Propanol and 5 minutes was all it took to get things running again, but they were torqued at loosing $250 worth of tapes. IMO, tape backups on 1/4" tape is asking for disaster.


>
>I've looked into a few backup programs, but FTAPE comes with most distros and works with many drives.
>
>Mike Copeland
>
>>I was looking thru the commercial versions. They are pricey. I was hoping to pay no more than $200. You would think with all the competition prices would come down.
>>
>>>>Has anyone installed a tape backup with Linux? Are there any low cost hardware/sofware recommendations for unattended backup up a 40GB HD.
>>>
>>>Hardware HOWTO - what hardware works and what doesn't. Slightly dated.
>>>http://users.bart.nl/~patrickr/hardware-howto/Hardware-HOWTO-15.html
>>>The classic Ftape software. Also dated. See the last link.
>>>http://www.linuxdocs.org/HOWTOs/Ftape-HOWTO.html
>>>
>>>There are TONS of backup software for Linux, take your pick:
>>>http://www.linuxlinks.com/Software/Backup/