Tape Backup?

[nunob]

So we bought a new 72GB external tape backup to implimint at a clients office they have 5 machines to backup. I was wondering what everyone reccomends for a good 10 tape rotation? TIA.

[arch0nmyc0n]

In the past I've used Mon Tues Wed Thurs for the first 4 tapes

Then Friday 1, 2 and 3.

Then the 4th friday in a month use Month 1.

change to Month 2 after the next rotation.

then lastly month 3 after the next rotation.

That way you have 3 months of backups

Hope that's clear enough...

[CeeBee]

Depends on the amount of data that gets changed every day. You could do a full on a tape (say on the last day of the month) and daily differentials on other(s), even appending the backups on other tapes if the space allows you to... You could create several sets this way.
Ex: last day of the month - full on tape 1
1st - differential on tape 2 (overwrite)
2nd, 3rd.. etc - differential on tape 2 (append) until tape 2 gets full, then go to tape 3, overwrite and continue with append next day.
With some luck you might even get 5 months of history (5 tapes with full backups, 5 with differentials, each containing a whole month).
In the worst case scenario, so much data gets changed each day that it becomes easier to do full backups each day, but this is extremely unlikely.