Re: bin/60521: dump(8): mystery of Hanoi

Sorry, I thought the answer was clear: it trades more tape scheduling comple=
xity for better data retention, tape use, and anegdotically, going through f=
ewer tapes to recover a file, which is what I recall were the reasons we wer=
e doing it in the early 80's with 6250 tapes. In the end, we were always wor=
ried about making mistakes or having bad backups, so we ended up making more=
 full backups than the algorithm required. Many variables have changed now, t=
he volume of data has skyrocketed, deduplication has become very important, t=
apes are not the dominant backup media, so perhaps noting the rationale for u=
sing the algorithm is just there for historical preservation.

christos

> On Aug 1, 2026, at 3:55=E2=80=AFPM, Taylor R Campbell via gnats <gnats-adm=
[email protected]> wrote:
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> =EF=BB=BFThe following reply was made to PR bin/60521; it has been noted b=
y GNATS.
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> From: Taylor R Campbell <[email protected]>
> To: Christos Zoulas <[email protected]>
> Cc: [email protected], [email protected]
> Subject: Re: bin/60521: dump(8): mystery of Hanoi
> Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2026 12:51:51 +0000
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>> Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2026 14:40:53 +0300
>> From: Christos Zoulas <[email protected]>
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>> Here is what chatgpt has to say:
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> Thanks, but this just repeats the same information I noted above about
> what _other_ references say `tower of Hanoi' means, and doesn't answer
> any of the questions I posed.  I already spent a lot of time filtering
> through LLM slop to get here; if I wanted more I could have gotten it
> myself.
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