[PLUG] Disk backups (was: DLT tape drives)

[Michael C. Robinson]

Good job.  I've been thinking about this too.  I figured I could unmount
a second forty gig drive I want to use for backup on one of my machines
and then unlock and remove it from it's tray.  The idea being to take it
out while the system is up, but this causes infinite drive activity. 
The latter can be done for floppy disks, why not hard disk drives?  The
only other approach I can think of is to take a dedicated computer
filling it with drives and substitute disconnecting the ethernet cable
for taking the drives out.  The latter may be better because it involves
avoiding the purchase of trays where I'm afraid I'll drop a hard drive,
something I have done in the past.  Tapes are more likely to work
after being dropped, though a system that does away with loading
altogether is very attractive.  For safety, the backup box filled
with drives can be placed in another room on a different circuit.  
I guess a simple light switch could be wired to a circuit that 
connects and disconnects the backup box from the network where 
putting it on a non externally routed ip subnet would make it 
even safer.  Closets would make good places for this box where 
it would make sense to have two in two different locations.

     --  Michael Robinson