[ale] Backup Questions

[Mike Millson]

I am trying to get up to speed using CD-R/RW to create backups. I have the
hardware and software working; now I'm not sure what direction to head. It
seems like the general idea to use tar, cpio, or something similar to create
an archive, then use mkisofs to create the iso file, then cdrecord to burn
the iso.

My Questions:
1) Are there reasons to use tar or cpio if I can directly specify the files
I want to back up using mkisofs? If I'm not compressing the files and it's a
straighforward backup, does it make sense to use mkisofs to directly select
the archived files?
2) Is there a clear answer to which is better: GNU tar or cpio?
3) Should all the warnings I read about using GNU tar and cpio with
compression cause me to not use compression? Or is the idea to use
compression but verify that the archive works after it is created? Is there
an automated way to tell if a tar or cpio archive is not corrupt after it is
created?

Thank you,
Mike

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