[Techtalk] backup - tar

[Maria McKinley]

Thanks everyone for all of your helpful advice. My short-term solution 
is using tar, but not using compression and dumping error messages to 
try to figure out what is going on.

I did find a useful web site

http://www.backupcentral.com/free-backup-software2.html

that lists all of the free software available for unix.

I was looking at amanda, which looks like about the best around, but I 
was confused by a statement they made:

  AMANDA supports using more than one tape in a single run, but does not 
yet split a dump image across tapes.

Can someone explain the difference between using more than one tape in a 
single run and splitting a dump image across tapes?  I would have 
assumed these were the same things.  My situation is that all of the 
data I want backed up does not fit on one tape.  Right now I backup 
different parts of the system on different nights by cron (now it is 
spread out even more than before, since I have stopped using zip to 
compress!).  How much versatility do I have with Amanda?  Can I save 
half of /home in one night?

While I am asking for backup advice... We are about to switch to a 1/2 
TB raid array.  Right now we have an hp dlt 40/80GB backup tape system, 
but we are going to have to upgrade this.  Any advice on how to backup a 
  1/2 TB?

thanks again - you guys rock,
maria