# Best way to backup zfs to an Ultrium 5 drive?



## holm (Dec 20, 2021)

Hi all,

I've got three IBM Ultrium 5 Drives with fiber channel connector that came from an IBM (Tivoli?) Tape Library for free.
From a friend I've got an QLE2462 FC Controller and a FC cable, that all was laying around some time. Now after I've build an somewhat "new" PC, I had to chance to test what I got. The Tape Drives "TSU 500", "IBM ULT3580-TD5 CB10" aren't desktop drives, only one button is reachable at the front and in the original Box the drives are connected with some small cables to some periphery..

Nevertheless they seem to be working w/o much problems. Camcontrol says the tape is offline after a camcontrol tur, a 2nd camcontrol tur states the tape online and it works flawlesly with mt and tar.

Now I wish to backup my disks from time to time to tapes but want to avoid "big" solutions like Bakula or similar.
What is the best way to backup a ZFS? I know about ZFS send and snapshots, but some people mean that this isn't the best solution and suggest to use tar instead. Some people are warning that ZFS isn't forgiving any bitrot and suggest to use tar therefore..??

What backup system could I use for backing up my single PC (and maybe the Notebooks from my wife and my son)?

Thanks in advance,

Holm


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## covacat (Dec 20, 2021)

i'd use tar, but i find it overkill to use  a lto drive at home
i would ebay the drive and the hba and use usb harddrive(s)


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## holm (Dec 20, 2021)

I do have three drives ..for free, additional 1 controller for free..
I want to switch on the Drives PSU with an solid State Relais, do some nightly backup and switch it off again..
The goal is todo some incremental backups after a first complete one.

Regards,
Holm


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## chrbr (Dec 20, 2021)

Long time ago I have had a tape drive. At that time the saying was that bit rot makes it impossible to restore a tar archive. The suggestion was to use cpio instead. Then only files with the bit rot are corrupted. It can be that the situation has changed. That was a long time ago.
Kind regards from Fürth/Mittelfranken!


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