From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Aug 23 18:21:34 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5643716A41F for ; Tue, 23 Aug 2005 18:21:34 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from djh@nebcorp.com) Received: from ratchet.nebcorp.com (ratchet.nebcorp.com [205.217.153.72]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 26B6543D45 for ; Tue, 23 Aug 2005 18:21:34 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from djh@nebcorp.com) Received: by ratchet.nebcorp.com (Postfix, from userid 1014) id 3DAF3D9829; Tue, 23 Aug 2005 11:21:33 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 11:21:33 -0700 From: Danny Howard To: Ilari Laitinen Message-ID: <20050823182133.GF51748@ratchet.nebcorp.com> References: <20050819141535.GA62513@lohi.local> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20050819141535.GA62513@lohi.local> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i X-Loop: djhoward@uiuc.edu Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: dump(8), incremental backups, Tower of Hanoi sequence, don't get it X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 18:21:34 -0000 On Fri, Aug 19, 2005 at 05:15:35PM +0300, Ilari Laitinen wrote: > Hello. > > Lately I have been getting more and more worried about data on my > FreeBSD box at home. I am forming a "real" small-scale backup policy > with two different big USB harddrives (yet to buy) storing regular > incremental backups (yet to figure out). The idea is to have those > harddrives mirror each other for extra security. Ilari, Three suggestions: 1) Use gmirror to mirror the hard drives, instead of manually mirroring them. 2) If all you have to deal with are static files and a not-super-giant-filesystem, use rsync. rsync -avz --delete once a night will "mirror" your data between drives or between machines without any trouble. The only disadvantage is there is no file retention if you want to restore a corrupt / deleted file after the fact. Maybe you could rsync between the USB disks prior to rsyncing your backups, then you have two iterations of data ... 3) Look into using AMANDA, which I think can be run without a tape device, if it regards your disks as long-term holding disks. It is probably overkill for you, but at least then you get to learn a more powerful backup package which you might want to have experience with for the future, and you won't have to worry about Towers of Hanoi or anything because AMANDA is smart enough to figure this out itself. Though, honestly, probably all that you need is to do 0 1 1 1 or such. Or possibly, mount filesystem snapshots and if you get acceptible performance just dump level 0 every night. Or ... really it depends what you want and what you've got. Do you want to be able to restore deleted files from the week prior? If not, then you can get away with "nightly full dump" or "nightly full mirror" strategies. Otherwise, yes, you need to rig up some multiple-dumplevel magic. Cheers, -danny -- http://dannyman.toldme.com/