From: Richard B. 

On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 11:32:42 -0400, "Frank Haber"
 wrote:

>I'd like to see this "traditional vs. image" discussion touch
on the peculiar
>nature of modern "data."  Besides the opsys being virtually
unrestorable, and
>the queasy feeling you get, worrying that you're imaging a slightly sick
>machine, there's the nature of modern data, which is not pure data.
>Everything's an active object, and formats are getting ever more complex,
>obscure, proprietary.

Well, for me, most of my data isn't so transitory as to demand strict
point-in-time backups.  Basically I archive data files once a week, with
daily backups rotating through two weeks to catch the uh-oh moments.

I do want to have a better feeling about servers that go bump in the night,
that I can restore them quickly or at a minimum get to the data restored to
another location.  I know there are all sorts of ways to provide high
availability, but I'm not on that thirsty horse crossing that particular
bridge at the moment. 

I just wonder if, here outside the box, I should consider images for my
backups.  I do have that same uneasy feeling if that data and it's
retrieval goes down the toilet when a company flushes the product.

So...I am leaning toward imaging products at the moment except for the
deciding if I can trust the vendors to be around when I need support for
file retrieval in 10 years.  Probably no different, tho, than the model I
have been living with.

- Richard

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