CSL: Tape Backup Schedule and Retention

Note: the following procedure can be changed without notice.

Full (level 0) backups are performed monthly, usually near the start of the month. These include everything on most of the departmental servers (home directories, project areas, etc).
Daily incremental (level 5) backups are performed every morning. These include any changes made since the most recent full (or any lower level) backup.
Full backups from January and July are kept indefinitely, corresponding roughly with the end of the fall and spring semesters. Other monthly backups are kept for: 2 years on-site and 1 year off-site. Daily backups are kept for at least 1 month (currently 6), then the tapes are reused.
Backups are stored mostly on LTO tapes, with some older backups on AIT and DLT tapes.
If you have special backup needs, please use the online form located at http://www.cs.duke.edu/requests/ to send in a request.
For more information, see the online reference for the ufsdump and ufsrestore commands, or contact the Lab Staff.