Jonathan Hutchins hutchins@tarcanfel.org wrote
I had a client some 7 years ago that had SCSI controller X, it shot craps, and data couldn't be recovered from drives because the firmware on the RAID controller was likewise not available, used a "funky" algorithm, etc. (Novell was part of that problem IIRC.)
This is one of two reasons I recommend disabling any hardware compression, and using software compression instead.
Note that Dustin's account has nothing to do with hardware compression - which
Then what "'funky' algorithm" could he be talking about? I'm not aware of an 'algorithm" for accessing SCSI devices. Sure, you need a driver that knows how to talk to the host adapter, but
is reasonably consistent among different manufacturers of compatible tape drives. If the tape will mount on the drive, chances are the drive will read it, compression and all.
When your business data are at stake, you don't want to take chances.
Software compression on the other hand, particularly if performed by a propietary program (say that three times fast), can be a guarantee of loss of
I was thinking of standard Unix compress, pkzip, gzip, which are non-proprietary. Any proprietary compression scheme, whether hardware or software, is not worth the risks - the whole point of backup is to be able to recover data after some kind of loss.