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From: hedrick@topaz.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: filesystems on tape
Message-ID: <14118@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Date: Thu, 20-Aug-87 21:01:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.14118
Posted: Thu Aug 20 21:01:29 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Aug-87 12:50:09 EDT
References: <1775@kontron.UUCP> <212@casemo.UUCP> <75@cipric.mn.org> <2161@xanth.UUCP>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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Xref: mnetor comp.periphs:543 comp.unix.wizards:3799

In article <2161@xanth.UUCP>, john@xanth.UUCP (John Owens) writes:
> ...  People have even made filesystems on
> magtapes and mounted them read-only, but I doubt if they ever did it
> for anything besides seeing that it could be done.

Actually, Pyramid distribution tapes include a bootable read-only
filesystem on tape.  It is a smallish root system, with the utilities
that you need for setting up disks and fixing badly crashed systems.
It's a good last-ditch refuge for when all your disks are trashed and
you don't want to just clear them and try again.  Sun's equivalent is
a file system image that you copy on top of your swap space, using the
standalone copy program.  Once you get it in, this gives you better
performance than a filesystem on tape.  And of course Sun is concerned
about machines that don't have tape drives.  But the tape file system
is easier to bring up, and its performance is surprisingly good.