tar | compress

[Ken Lerman]

In article <28498 at usc> kjh at pollux.usc.edu (Kenneth J. Hendrickson) writes:
->If you do a backup with tar, and pipe the output through compress before
->writing it on the disk or tape, and ...
->
->	if there is a single bit error on the tape,
->	then you could loose all the files in your backup from that
->		point until the end.
->
->If you don't use compress, and there is a single bit error, you won't
->have that problem, but you will require many more disks or tapes.
->
->--
->
->So what do people do?  Do you trust your disks/tapes and use compress?
->
->-- 
->  favourite oxymorons:  student athlete, honest politician, civil war
->Ken Hendrickson N8DGN/6       kjh at usc.edu      ...!uunet!usc!pollux!kjh

Of course, an alternative is to compress your files first and then
backup using tar.

I would not consider a compressed tar file to be a viable backup.

So far, everything fits on one tape on my machine.

Ken