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From: Jerry McAllister <jerrymc@clunix.cl.msu.edu>
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To: richard@planet-richard.com (Richard Beyer)
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:44:49 -0500 (EST)
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	from "Richard Beyer" at Feb 24, 2004 10:32:01 AM
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cc: 'FreeBSD Questions List' <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject: Re: backup
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> 
> We're currently doing a back up of a FreeBSD 4.9 (2) server by plugging a
> USB external drive in and then doing
> 
> cp /dev/ad0 /dev/da0
> 
> This takes about 30 hours, (USB 1).
> 
> Is this the best way to do it, or can someone suggest a better way.  We'd
> rather not have the server offline while we do it.

I would suggest using dump (and restore if you need something recovered)
if you can because cp may not preserve everything appropriately.

or dump | restore if you are trying to build the file system on to
the other disk.   

I wonder also about your choice of devices, but I don't know how you 
created them or mounted them.   Actually, I would use their mount names 
rather than devices anyway.  Or am I missing something here?

Using dump[/restore] won't speed anything up, but it would make sure 
it is usable later.

////jerry

> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Richard
>