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Linux Backup With DVD Media?
Dan asks: "Our research group just moved into a new lab, and I am in charge of organizing the computer systems. A graduate student half-joked about finding a way to get the lab a DVD burner. At first I thought using DVD for backup would be cumbersome, but then I found a few products designed for backups. I targeted a DVDRAM Jukebox by Powerfile for $4000. While it appears to be a good solution for nightly backups, Powerfile does not support Linux. After searching for topics on Linux support for DVD backup systems, I found an unsupported script that was hacked together. There must be more support out there, right? Has anyone else had experience with using DVD as an automated backup system? It wouldn't be such a good idea to spend $4000 on hardware we couldn't guarantee to work, but it would be sweet to have a jukebox DVD burner running on Linux."
fp uhuhuhuhuhuh
This does not belong here.
RA
I sometimes think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability. -- Oscar Wilde
Well, I just ran FlashFXP through a disassembler, XpT'99-WS32Dasm Ver 8.9 Program Disassembler/Debugger by URSoftware, and i got the cracked version and the full version. The cracked version is 11MB of ASM, and the uncracked is 28MB. That is strange to me. Also, if anyone reading this idiotic defense of FlashFXP, this is what a snippit of assembly looks like from FlashFXP [as you will see, its complete and total gibberish without comments and variable names]: * Referenced by a (U)nconditional or (C)onditional Jump at Address: |:0052D06D(C) :0052D026 2C22 sub al, 22 :0052D028 020443 add al, byte ptr [ebx+2*eax] :0052D02B 6861723FFF push FF3F7261 :0052D030 F7FE idiv esi :0052D032 BF6D069040 mov edi, 4090066D :0052D037 260108 add dword ptr es:[eax], ecx :0052D03A 53 push ebx :0052D03B 686F727469 push 6974726F :0052D040 6E outsb :0052D041 7400 je 0052D043 * Referenced by a (U)nconditional or (C)onditional Jump at Address: |:0052D041(C) :0052D043 80FF01 cmp bh, 01 :0052D046 7F2E jg 0052D076 :0052D048 695BF393586D61 imul ebx, dword ptr [ebx-0D], 616D5893 :0052D04F 6C insb :0052D050 6C insb :0052D051 0231 add dh, byte ptr [ecx] :0052D053 2E BYTE 02eh :0052D054 70DF jo 0052D035 :0052D056 33FB xor edi, ebx :0052D058 F70749256567 test dword ptr [edi], 67652549 :0052D05E 65 BYTE 065h :0052D05F 7204 jb 0052D065 :0052D061 52 push edx :0052D062 318BC0882E04 xor dword ptr [ebx+042E88C0], ecx :0052D068 42 inc edx :0052D069 C8CFAE95 enter AECF, 95 So things like black ice could step through this and identify undesirable conditions to defeat, but as far as auditing what the program does in every case [like send strange data back to CedSoft]? I don't think so. MxxCon, since you seem to be all knowing, can read assembly, and claim not to be DeWeese while acting like his proxy/avatar and claiming not to be him, which is unlikely. Either you are DeWeese doing damage control (and a bad job of it) or you are a Shareware groupie - a crazed fan of a $35 program. I would like you to defend FlashFXP's handle on index.dat. Why is there open file handles on index dat? Hrmm? You cleverly like to deprecate and shoot down "holes" in these wild conspiracy theories but to each theory/observation you do not completely refute anything. You leave out certain points - my guess is that you have nothing to refute it with. You know, DeWeese, you would never get away with this on Unix, why don't you port to OS X or Linux, maybe FreeBSD. You won't do that because your lies and deceit would be uncovered in seconds, and its trivial to cover your paths in windows. I know you do things other than what you claim. That much is clear. The nature of this undocumented, undesired activity is unknown, but I can only suspect given your rash of license revocations and refusal to allow people to buy the product anonymously in shrink wrap off of a shelve can mean you are only up to no good. Looks like CedSoft could aptly be named PhedSopht. You think you can take a modern executable program with reams of objects and linked against tons of crap and has been stripped and simply disassemble it into clean x86 assembly and read it? HAHAHA. Yeah, we can all have the source assembly for windows too, it is as easy as running EXE files through some magical disassembler. That's a laugh. It really is. Cracking isn't that bad because you can walk an execution with a tool and then find the place where the undesired jump occurs and do something to prevent that condition, but to run out and get a disassembler and read assembly, HAHAHA. I challenge you. Go get a any win32 program, and then go find a disassembler for x86. And then change the program in some functional way (not just loop or condition avoidance), and then recompile it. Go ahead. I want to see this. And if you think a stripped binary can be decompiled into its native language, HAHAHA even more. This is really pathetic, you think you can defend Charles DeThief, CedPhedSoft and FlashPhedFXP by citing that cracking groups have audited the assembly code from illegally obtained reverse engineered assembly code. That's like saying - Charles Manson certifies that I'm a good person - SO IT MUST BE TRUE. Short of coming out with the source code or maybe an un-stripped binary, all bets are off on true exoneration. Also, you are right about EQUiNOX packing the release. But unpacked, there is a significant amount of code chopped out. I'd like to know what EQUiNOX had to cut out to get FlashFXP from calling home or they didn't bother looking at it. So the best you FXP zealots can do to defend Charles calling home is to cite cracking groups audit illegally obtained assembly and that disassembled code from stripped binaries is somehow readable to anyone but Lt. Commander Data from Star Trek. ,Comet Cursor, Alexa, Aureate, Aureate, Gator and backdooring your computer and canceling registrations and blacklisting people to be bothered with you and your plebian needs. Guess we sheeple are born to serve the masters like Count DeWeese and his squadron of Shylock lawyers with that EULA of DEATH. Just read it. This man is sick, and you will be knifed in the back by him. Read the EULA, see the packets encrypted. No source. And disassembling this wont tell you one way or another what it does for sure. It may not have spyware in it, it might BE spyware. Your info, sold, to the lowest forms of life on earth. No source code, lots of general distrust from many sources, and refusal to completely deny that his calling home is anything more than registration and blacklist data. Its encrypted, so your private information, even yours ftp site list, your machine's sid, your media players GUID, all sorts of UIDs, your life sold down the river to a heartless bleackhearted money grubbing heathen. A friend whose comment was deleted here: "I've been using FlashFXP since the early early days of its life. I've paid for 2 licenses at two different times. The first one was canceled because I used the same copy on my home machine and my laptop. So I was a sucker and got another license, making sure that I would only use it on the same computer. The second license was also canceled a couple weeks after reinstalling windows. They claimed something about piracy. How do they know if I'm using it on two different computers or even a new install of windows? Spyware? It seems like it. It's really too bad, because FlashFXP could be a great program if the author wasn't such a shareware/piracy bitch. Don't give him your money. "
Version two has an interesting property. The un-cracked version is considerably larger that the cracked version when it is disassembled. I have read a lot about FlashFXP doing various unscrupulous things to protect itself from piracy and multiple uses of the same copy, etc etc. I have also heard that it does more than that, though I can not confirm this. What surprises me is that there was a large amount of cruft cut out by EQUiNOX - disassemble it for yourself, try IDA Pro 4.17 or W32Dasm v8.93. I can't even imagine a program doing as much as FlashFXP does and then have a considerable chunk of cruft cut out like the cancer that it is - it claims to be benign, according to Charlie's zealots, I am guessing it is malignant. I strongly believe now given this new evidence that FlashFXP could possibly be a Trojan, backdoor, gateway of evil - I don't know and don't care - this is a fact but subjectively to me it looks VERY fishy. It has promptly been deleted from my system. And reading Charles's and others who defend Charles DeWeese comments, I realize that in defending themselves they almost clearly give away their guilt of doing something surreptitious and undocumented. They claim people who don't have access to the source code have verified that it has no undesired behaviors. I don't know anyone who would EVER make that claim without the source code, and most people can't with no uncertainty audit source code to make the same claim. Its horribly upsetting that these people, most of which who have never seen the source themselves, are so quick to defend DeWeese. I don't know of any crackers claiming Flash FXP is clean, they may have no encountered undocumented behavior, but hey, if it was using port 80 through an Internet Explorer entry point, you would never know. I want to know all the libraries it uses, I noticed it has a file handle on index.dat [TaskInfo 2000 can do something like lsof in Win32, see for yourself what files and pipes FXP opens, and no, every process does not open index.dat, SecureCRT and Trillian don't, for example], which means it obviously does something with IE and its libraries. In fact, Internet Explorer is amazingly overpowered [especially with an OS that has no regard for user/privileged separation] and easily manipulated, it can be invoked invisibly, IE could be a proxy for FlashFXP and it could communicate at will even with Kerio or an app firewall, as everyone allows Internet Explorer. While I will not substantiate stacks on DeWeese, the facts as they are presented to me lead me to believe DeWeese has a lot to hide, and if this was a court and I was the Judge, I would uphold and order any requests for discovery regarding DeWeese's source code. It was done to Microsoft in court. But DeWeese is niche, low key compared to MSFT, so he could potentially leverage your computer in ways you would never suspect, and he is free from any and all ramifications. He has done one of the largest and most obnoxious CYA EULAs I have ever seen from a "down home grass roots" programmer. DeWeese or a minion has just lied in the thread, there is nowhere a cracking group advertises or sanctions applications to be Spyware or Trojan free. He has used the names of cracking groups without citing the source, and the misguided people are likely to believe him but he has never named a person other than himself that has [1] audited the source code or [2] reverse engineered the product completely, then audited the assembly of an inexorably complex object laden program to be undocumented feature free (which is illegal and his EULA indicated and threatens to invoke the DMCA and the federal authorities against those who threaten his intellectual property). What he says about the black ice using crackers is false, they can remove jumps to the lame routines which protect his software from pirates, but they don't also magically audit the program for all jumps to all subs that do any "strange" things. Please. And the Flash FXP platoon acts as though it has a camaraderie with people who aid and abet software theft. You cant have it both ways. You cant have 1MB of binary be surgically removable and not have it do anything but protect the software. They cant cite any sources or names of those who audit software, reverse engineer it or have sent eh source to certifiably deny this code is clean and above board. Users beware. They appear to be lying or hiding something. Defend yourself, and scrub those packets. Peace and may the powers that be shine a bright light on the champions of honesty and dedication to a job honestly and well done, the open source programmers.
A few of my friends have been bitten by DeWeese's shyster tactics. I have too. I can only say avoid this man. He will not answer questions directly, he will not tell you what is the payload of encrypted packets and he insinuates a symbol-less stripped binary created by an obscure (but good) compiler could be reverse engineered enough to prove it is not Trojaned. Its crap. Its dodgy crap. And until the encrypted payload is decrypted, and some source code is released, you have to take his word. And don't; because if you cant trust him to give you the free upgrades he promised because you have 5 computers at home and now you are a pirate if he detects you using FFXP_666 on any of them even if its not at the same time. Try a dual boot, and you'll get the blacklist. Try FFXP onWINE, you'll get the blacklist. Think before paying. This stuff is going to haunt you. And notably absent, OS X and a unice version. Guess he isn't very savvy at writing portable code, probably busy cutting deals with Ashcroft, Robert Mueller, Louis Freeh, Robert Holleyman [BSA],
Charles Deweese has written a good piece of software. however, I wonder what his true intentions are in knowing about his users. He will not sell his product anonymously. You will probably never see this on the shelves. Is he FED? Why is it that cracked versions of his products find out they are not legitimate? Why does his program make undocumented connections to the internet? I admit I did not bother reading the EULA, however I do not believe that a piece of software has the right to go behind a user's back and report to its maker. What is it reporting in these encrypted packets? Usage statistics? Version information? Spyware to the truest form of the definition if you ask this user. I will not use his software after discovering these subversive transmissions. I file it in the same bin that I file windows media player, Trillian, and many distributed network clients. I spy with my little eye a big $%#$ stain in the e-pigsty! He is quoted as saying "why do you care if you have nothing to hide?" in regards to selling his product with paypal, or any other form of anonymous sale.. Why would he care if he has nothing to hide? I SAY -5 to this program. I asked Charles DeWeese how it was he was making so much money of late. He replied, "I accuse people of piracy to generate more cash by revoking their registrations," then a series of nerdy Dr. Evil-esque snickers and self aggrandizing laughs. I was so disgusted by him that I ceased being his acquaintance after that. He seemed proud that he did these things. Also, to all the people who say "prove it," you cant. The packets are encrypted. You can't see the payload. Probably your site data and stuff gleaned from your system. A dramatization but can you prove its not true. This comment will be deleted by totalitarian fascists at GaytaNews. Hitler admins. Slashdot doesn't delete comments but you do, good responsibility to uphold the truth.
Direct quotes from DeWeese's license, he can only said "I did say this, verbatim." THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE AUTHOR FURTHER DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON INFRINGEMENT. THE ENTIRE RISK ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THE PRODUCT AND DOCUMENTATION REMAINS WITH RECIPIENT. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY CONSEQUENTIAL, INCIDENTAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, PUNITIVE, OR OTHER DAMAGES WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF BUSINESS INFORMATION, OR OTHER PECUNIARY LOSS) ARISING OUT OF THIS AGREEMENT OR THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE PRODUCT, EVEN IF THE AUTHOR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. "Software piracy will not be tolerated. We may release any information necessary to comply with the law, protect our software licenses. We will also work with law enforcement and fraud/credit agencies to ensure the safety of our information." Doesn't say piracy against CEDSoft, he means any piracy. So watchout. I am appalled DeWeese and his minions have so successfully pulled wool over everyone's eyes. This is as bad as the Nazis with the Reichstag fire! I can't believe Charles the totalitarian and his army of mediocritomatons had the review history wiped out here! He did that to mask the evil at hand. He has sold his own user community to marketers, and his program makes undocumented undesired connections to the internet. He has revoked registrations without cause, had possibly sent ftp saved site data to law enforcement, and frequently uses encrypted payloads in packets so packet sniffer can't tell what the packet has in it. I would hope for your sake you don't save passwords with FlashFXP, our your friends FTP site may become "exhibit A" in a federal court. Beware. DEWEEESE ALSO MAKES THE BETANEWS ADMINS DELETE BAD REVIEWS. THEY SPRY ADDS IN YOUR FACE AND DELETE CONTENT.
Embrace smartftp. Charles DeWeese has a batallion of goobers at his bidding. This program used to have a large history here at betanews and his minions got it deleted. He has newsgroups and he spread lies to cover up his true intentions. Anyways, be safe bro. It wasn't internet garbage. And smartftp only exists because DeWeese is dishonest. Be careful and don't use any sites you don't want the l/p public on, because DeWeese gets them ALL. Peace, honestly, and power to the people, the little people. John Ahscroft and DeWeese are cut from the same cloth.
FlashFXP is the root of all evil. Not only does this closed source call-home program get huge amounts of attention making all of us wonder if "Charles DeWeese the information thief" is 1) selling your information to marketeers, 2) pretending he can increase profits by threatening, as reported in some cases, paying customers with BSA actions and lawsuits or 3) trojaning your system for other nefarious activities the nature of which you will never be aware because he provides neither source or debugging symbols, and the binary is stripped. One thing is for sure. Be it here on BetaNews, or on Slashdot, or on download.com.com, there is more than a few people calling into question why FlashFXP does what it does, and what is it doing. I would recommend the use of WinPCAP, WinDUMP, and ethereal, along with the free for personal use application firewall, Kerio Personal Firewall (software with nothing to hide, such as KPF, is often free for personal use, and others, like FreeBSD, OpenBSD, OpenSSL (a technology probably stolen by DeWeese and used illegally in FFXP) and Linux/GNU to name a few. With scary legislation in the US empowering copyright holders to DDOS your P2P networks, "root" your boxes in order to delete copyrighted content, and to make circumventing the mechanism by which an MP3 prevents the playing of an MP3 without a digital signature a felony, you can not trust software which calls home in an undocumented, undesirable way. This is the inroad by which these technology fascists will infect your computer with government sanctioned Trojaning devices. FlashFXP, when purchased legitimately, forces your to divulge HUGE amounts of information about yourself. You cant use cash and anonymously buy "shrink." Not only did I buy FFXP, but I exercised my right to fair use on more than one machine, the closed source binary was never run concurrently on more than one CPU at a time, yet my key got blacklisted. I have always been fond of OpenSource, but this and the EULAs for Windows Media Player, which also does various call home undocumented behavior, make not using OpenSource suicidal if you want a life where the government doesn't control and monitor your every key press. Best of luck in the brave new world, if we continue to support fascists such as Charles DeWeese in his never-ending pursuit to force you to be tithed for non-Novel software which is built upon the stolen intellectual property of others, and prioritized. This is by no means a call for legislated digital communism, but it certainly calls into question the value of something that is not transferable, the seller has not liability of the actions of, the right to fair use is forfeit, and they law claims they copyright holder can root your computer in order to enforce copyright. Software like this I should be paid to use! Not pay for it! Be careful. He has stolen from the public domain technology to implement this secure technology, SSL, then he uses it to hide from you the true nature of his communications with home-base, as he calls home and Jon.Ashkrofts your information. I'm glad I use SmartFTP and NCFTP and run KPF as a start in the line of defense against a Orwellian cabal of software and I.P. For all the would-be suckers out there, and that is what you would be for soliciting this guy, most of the complaints I have seen here are from older people, clearly, mature (not script kiddie types) that have had their honest to God license revoked without refund. Please be careful. If this man offered a shrink wrap product, there would be no problem - but he does not. He needs more control over you than that. I think he sends marketing data back personally. "If you choose to register FlashFXP, some personal information is required to complete the purchase. Things like your name/company, address, and billing information like your credit card number is collected. " Now with a rash of hackers stealing credit card numbers, and Charles storing all sorts or private information on you, you become VULNERABLE. In his EULA: "The license will terminate automatically and the software unregistered if you fail to comply with any of the above terms and conditions. The license may be terminated by either party at any time and without notice." He can TERMINATE the license for any reason. He could say, you have to stop using this, because you are a good paying customer and I don't care. He has done this. Listen to the huge community of Charles victims before you send him money. This program started out very good, ambitious. A refreshing rival to Cute, with better reliability and FXP capability. Of late, particularly after the 1.2 builds, this program has started to numerous things I am highly suspect of. This program has corrupted files on transfer, and has called home on me, apparently to "verify registration, check for update." I am confused as to why a paying customer is subjected to cross examination, to me this is a form of abuse. I recently tried a RC3 build, and was surprised that more things are broken than ever before, and reverted back 1.4. I am saddened that I have paid to buy into a crumbling, failing legacy which is bloating up, working less and failing its original design goals so drastically, all the while subjecting paying customers to offensive call home checks.
Betanews sells deletions of bad reviews to the highest bidder. I have saved and logged all deleted comments here. Censorship. Charles DeWeese chartered sellouts to delete ALL the history here. He used totalitarian tactics to censor an online community. Its pathetic. Fascist. Totalitarian. And all previous build before and most likely all to come. I implore every use of this software to be weary and on guard! I would have a good firewall with a drop all, allow exception rule set, ethereal, windump/[tcpdump on *nix], and a pcap lib, or use sniffer, and get ready to watch this thing with hawk eyes. Given the author's tradition of reporting usage, selling information to marketing companies, and revoking registrations without cause, we must be prepared for his latest Trojan horse. The program is delightful, irresistible, for it is feature laden, stable. But its target is warez users, and I strongly feel this warez-centric program serves to report to the government the biggest abuses. Remember, that the information he claims is benign is encrypted, so you will never see the payload of this machinations and undesired packets. He also uses port 80 to send information out on, so please be using an application firewall such as Kerio. I would not trust Charles unless he releases source code. We are already help hostage by a closed source MSCVRT, and other runtime libraries, any of which could perform undocumented tasks with encrypted packets, you might see packets but the nature of the payload is occluded. I strongly recommend that nobody trusts outgoing packets they cannot decrypt. Anyways, for the technically savvy, one should peruse through the packets this thing produces, and ask yourself, do you really trust some man who will not end these perpetual and consistent accusations by revealing some of the source code to allay the growing fears he is part of a dragnet cabal to capture people determined to be felon software pirates. He is a party to your own demise, the "Robin Hood" loopholes are closed, and Charles could make money off you and put you in jail. He makes money off of FlashFXP, he targets the warez community, the program sends packets that are extraneous to file transfers that are encrypted, he has revoked registrations without cause, he sells your information to marketers I have confirmed this through SpamCop, and he is in cahoots with federal authorities to help Trojan and compromise your computer.
The owners of Flash FXP used China like tactics to have a lot of reviews DELETED here. They also asked that Betanews block several reviewer's ip addresses from voicing thier opinions. So the owners of Flash FXP are so fearful of the truth coming out they have betanews DELETE reviews, block IPs of "liars". So that makes Betanews a propaganda machine that censors, and FlashFXP totalitarians that lobby to have opinions erase SELECTIVELY. notice that all the reviews weren't deleted, just negative ones. Betanews, you have lost your sense of fairness. I guess opinions are not welcomed here if they are not populist. PATHETIC.
I guess your firewall log is rubbish then, cause this thing sprays out a slew of packets when you start the thing up. All what look like gibberish when you take them apart. It definitely phones home. I tell everyone, if you don't need to FXP stuff, to avoid this app like the plague. There are plenty of better apps that aren't as clunky, don't phone home, and have 95% of the features that this thing does. I guess "Feature Creep" went from being an annoyance, to being an issue of adding spywarer into the app itself. I'm sure once the mystery is uncovered this thing will be put on the ad-aware nuke list...
Not only does this closed source call-home program get huge amounts of attention making all of us wonder if "Charles DeWeese the information thief" is 1) selling your information to marketeers, 2) pretending he can increase profits by threatening, as reported in some cases, paying customers with BSA actions and lawsuits or 3) trojaning your system for other nefarious activities the nature of which you will never be aware because he provides neither source or debugging symbols, and the binary is stripped. One thing is for sure. Be it here on BetaNews, or on Slashdot, or on download.com.com, there is more than a few people calling into question why FlashFXP does what it does, and what is it doing. I would recommend the use of WinPCAP, WinDUMP, and ethereal, along with the free for personal use application firewall, Kerio Personal Firewall (software with nothing to hide, such as KPF, is often free for personal use, and others, like FreeBSD, OpenBSD, OpenSSL (a technology probably stolen by DeWeese and used illegally in FFXP) and Linux/GNU to name a few. With scary legislation in the US empowering copyright holders to DDOS your P2P networks, "root" your boxes in order to delete copyrighted content, and to make circumventing the mechanism by which an MP3 prevents the playing of an MP3 without a digital signature a felony, you can not trust software which calls home in an undocumented, undesirable way. This is the inroad by which these technology fascists will infect your computer with government sanctioned Trojaning devices. FlashFXP, when purchased legitimately, forces your to divulge HUGE amounts of information about yourself. You cant use cash and anonymously buy "shrink." Not only did I buy FFXP, but I exercised my right to fair use on more than one machine, the closed source binary was never run concurrently on more than one CPU at a time, yet my key got blacklisted. I have always been fond of OpenSource, but this and the EULAs for Windows Media Player, which also does various call home undocumented behavior, make not using OpenSource suicidal if you want a life where the government doesn't control and monitor your every keypress. Best of luck in the brave new world, if we continue to support fascists such as Charles DeWeese in his never-ending pursuit to force you to be tithed for non-Novel software which is built upon the stolen intellectual property of others, and prioritized. This is by no means a call for legislated digital communism, but it certainly calls into question the value of something that is not transferable, the seller has not liability of the actions of, the right to fair use is forfeit, and they law claims they copyright holder can root your computer in order to enforce copyright. Software like this I should be paid to use! Not pay for it! Be careful. He has stolen from the public domain technology to implement this secure technology, SSL, then he uses it to hide from you the true nature of his communications with home-base, as he calls home and Jon.Ashkrofts your information. I'm glad I use SmartFTP and NCFTP and run KPF as a start in the line of defense against a Orwellian cabal of software and I.P.
http://www.google.co.nz/search?num=30&hl=en&ie=UTF -8&oe=UTF-8&q=linux+dvd+burn+backup
Have you heard of the web buddy?
is it the interface? is it too hard to understand the results? are the occasional chineese etc entries too much for some people? why oh why cant anyone use google!!!!!
dybia felly dwi a hampster (i think therefore i am a hampster)
Instead of complaining about it in what should overwise be an interesting thread?
I read /. every day. It's interesting, often fun, and more often than not, quite educational.
/. for public commentary is a valuable part of that experience.
Having the odd slightly-off-kilter hardware question posted on
Sure, google is easy to use, but you don't get to share the results of the effort, nor talk about the circumstances, with thousands of other geeks.
*That* is the value inherent in Ask Slashdot stuff like this.
Those that moan about it just don't get it.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
There are lots of reports that DVDs burnt on one box aren't readable/playable in another. Check out articles on www.vcdhelp.com for examples (mainly video-related).
I burnt some video CDs on different CD-R and CD-RW media and found that some friends' DVD players played some and not others, and some played none, and few played them all. I think there are similar problems with DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM. Its put me off buying a DVD burner for video just yet.
So, do you want to trust your backups to media that might not be readable on a different model device should your one blow up?
Baz
I thought of using DVD's for backups also. The problem I see is that the capacity is way to small, it may work for replacing a DDS-1 drive but for most backups I can't get away without using a DDS3. If you have ever conducted a restore over many tapes (remember 6525 tapes?) you know that if tape 3 out of 5 is bad your screwed.
That being said, I prefer to use one large tape. On some of my older HP machines I can fit an entire backup on one DDS3, that means no incrementals are needed. How sweet is that?
The problem as I see it is that not even DVD has the capacity to back up modern systems. The advances in hard disk capacity are vastly outstripping our ability to reasonably back them up. I have over 20GB of MP3s that I've ripped so I won't have to keep my cd collection handy. This is great, but I'm pretty much out of luck if I want to keep the stuff backed up.
Sadly, the mismatch between capacity of removable and fixed media seems to have always been the case. Years ago, I gave up trying to do periodic backups to floppy once it took 20 or so of them to do the job. Now, here I am with a CD burner with hundreds of times more capacity than those old floppy disks, and I'm still in the same boat.
I've looked at tape backup solutions, but find it hard to reconcile myself with spending twice as much (or more) on a tape drive as I did the rest of my system. If there were a decent capacity (20GB+) tape drive to be had for approximately the same price as a CD burner, I'd jump on it, and not brgrudge the costs of the tapes so much if I could reasonably expect to be able to drop a tape in the drive and have what should be essentially a reloadable volume available the next morning.
For corporate systems, DLTs and a changer is a solution of sorts if your company isn't too cheap to lay out the cash, but those kind of systems are definately not within the average home user's budget.
I still bite the bullet and do quarterly backups, but it's a major effort, mostly because I haven't found a good backup program that I can get to work for me that doesn't want a tape drive. I kinda wish BRU would introduce a version of their program that would write to CD/DVD.
My two cents. Let the moderation begin!
This is an ex-parrot!
Last time I checked, DVDRAMs were about $10 per 9.4 GB, or $1/GB. Interestingly, that's the same price per GB you now pay for 5400 RPM IDE drives - about $90 for 80 GB, or slightly more for 7200 RPM drives (about $1.40 per GB). Just build a big server with 3ware raid cards and stick it in another building on campus.
:)
http://staff.sdsc.edu/its/terafile/index.html
These people did this a while ago - instead of spending $4000 on a piece of specialized hardware that is officially Windows-only, buy a $2000 server and plenty of drives, with room to scale to over 4 TB
For $4000 you should be able to get a DAT (DDS3 or DDS4) autoloader (20GB native, 40GB compressed for DDS4)...
In the long run, Tapes are still the cheapest solution for backups, in terms of $$/GB of space. Some people opt for putting some of their on-sites into cheap HDD storage, like the DX30 (3TB of IDE disk that emulates a tape library through scsi/fc interfaces), since while it's more expensive per gig, it's also a great deal faster and has nice random access compared to a tape library. However, DVDs are still gonna be slow to burn and slow to randomly access a given DVD out of a library.
11*43+456^2
...apart from the name.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Boy, 5 GB doesn't sound like much these days... though I suppose it's plenty enough to back up critical data. Although drives are certainly getting bigger and getting filled up, a lot of that is non-critical cruft and bloated software that can be reinstalled from source. So, maybe 5 GBytes is okay...
One thing I worry about is the reliability of RW media. How many erase/write transitions can a DVDRW blank take? And how long does it take to "reformat" the medium and to write everything back on again?
According to the DVD+RW alliance, 2.4x DVD write is 3.32 MBytes/sec. That's faster than 2.5MBytes/sec of DLT, but tape drives erase-and-write at the same time. Supposedly AIT's sustain 4MBytes/sec (but I just looked this up, and I have never used AIT's).
use a windows box for the interface and stream the files over the network
It's not free, but it's faster than tar (heh, heh) and the Linux support is getting better.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I've just started using BackupEdge by microlite. It works on Linux, Caldera Open UNIX, UnixWare, and OpenServer, and writes to tape, CD-R/RW, DVD(+/-)R/RW/RAM on several drives. It seems to write successfully on my SONY DVD+R/RW, though I haven't attempted a restore. (Yeah I know - I'll test it *real* soon ;^)
The user interface is a terminal screen. It also supports command line operation.
http://www.microlite.com/
Capt. Percoloator
id like to point out that though a hard drive cost more $/Gb than tape, most people do not develope a library of old daily backups, but rather rotate through the same tapes over and over in a weekly to monthly schedule. Doing this make hard drives cheaper per Gb as the longevity of hard drives significantly reduces the costs versus tapes.
How many times can you write to a tape before it needs replaced? before the media is stretch so bad it cant reliably hold data?
hard drives can be written to for many many years when used as a backup device in a hotswap bay.
DVD and DVD-RAM on the other hand, have a limited number of writes and/or rewrites and mean buying more media on a regular basis. The media is more spendy than tapes but does have the low random access times which is nice.
FYI, i run a computer service center and i have been recommending hot swap drives for backup to all my customers.
20Gb drives are resonably cheap and last for the forseable lifetime of the machine being backed up. they are just as convinient as tapes in portability but more reliable. In schools i typically have the super or principal take the backup home with him/her OR lock in in the firesafe.
step 1: boot to windows...
Ask Slashdot: How can I try to bullshit our purchasing department into buying a DVD burner so I can encode my DIVX copies of Sailor Moon and hentai onto DVD?
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
I have had a Pioneer DVD-RW drive for over a year. I have used various brands of DVD-R's to test compatibility. What I have found is that even the cheapest media is compatible with DVD-ROM drives.
The troubles on www.vcdhelp.com are all about compatibilty issues with DVD players. So, if you want to put a movie on a DVD, or want to restore your backup through your DVD player, then you have compatibility problems to worry about. If you want to restore the backup with a DVD-ROM drive, then you just need to make sure the data was written properly. Unless you get some crap US made disks (http://store.yahoo.com/cd-recordable-dot-com/), there is seldom a problem.
"Luncheon meats make the sawdust in your stomach explode."