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From: simsong@athena.mit.edu (Simson L. Garfinkel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: is it OK to keep an optical cartridge running 24 hours a day?
Message-ID: <1990Aug13.062107.28413@athena.mit.edu>
Date: 13 Aug 90 06:21:07 GMT
References: <1990Aug12.142145.7467@zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu>
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 24

In article <1990Aug12.142145.7467@zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu> nevai@function.mps.ohio-state.edu (Paul Nevai) writes:
>Well, I have a harddisk in the cube but would like to keep a cartridge in it
>permanently to make (automated) backups. My cube is running day and night
>with no problems.
>
>Question: is it OK to have an optical disk up and running 24 hours a day?
>
>If answer is yes, that would let me do cronned backups without ever worrying.
>
I strongly recommend against leaving your backup cartridge inside your cube.

What if your cube gets stolen? 

What if your cube has a fire?  What if your building has a fire,
for that matter.

What if there is an earthquake, and a girder falls on your cube?

What if your evil twin brother comes into your office, bent on destroying
all of your files?

There are a lot of good reasons to make a backup beyond "operator error"
and "hardware failure."  Most of those reasons require that you take
the backups to another physical location.