backup through the fs

[jim frost]

I didn't realize that EFS worked that way.  Interesting.  How do you
know how large an extent to allocate anyway?  Or do you attempt to
allocate extents within differing cylinders (groups) so you can
possibly continue expanding the extent until either the cylinder
(group) is full or you run out of cylinders (groups)?  And what
exactly defines an extent (ie it's not likely to be <start
block>,<run> for obvious reasons).

I'd really like some reading material on EFS if you have it.
Inquiring minds want to know.

>Me?--I use tar & cpio.
>
>Vernon Schryver
>Silicon Graphics
>vjs at sgi.com

Tar isn't too useful when you're backing up more than a few hundred
megabytes (actually even a hundred).  It's slow and very unreliable.
Given Murphy's Law and the nature of tape drives, the one backup you
really need will be corrupted.  A good backup/restore program would be
able to get a lot of information off the tape anyway; tar would barf
and you'd end up bit-fiddling to get the file.  Blech.

jim frost
madd at bu-it.bu.edu