From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 24 00:06:41 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2E4A216A468 for ; Thu, 24 May 2007 00:06:41 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jason+lists.freebsd-questions@lixfeld.ca) Received: from mx1.arionetworks.ca (alpha.arionetworks.ca [69.90.16.189]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0D7A513C45E for ; Thu, 24 May 2007 00:06:40 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jason+lists.freebsd-questions@lixfeld.ca) Received: from beta.arionetworks.ca ([216.7.194.254] helo=[192.168.100.190]) by mx1.arionetworks.ca with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES128-SHA:128) (Exim 4.67 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1Hr0EV-000GD2-GZ for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Wed, 23 May 2007 19:27:08 -0400 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.3) Message-Id: <28E0DBBA-BB24-4D6B-AE65-07EB5254025C@lixfeld.ca> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org From: Jason Lixfeld Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 19:27:05 -0400 X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.752.3) X-SA-Trusted-Sender: Yes X-SA-Exim-Connect-IP: 216.7.194.254 X-SA-Exim-Mail-From: jason+lists.freebsd-questions@lixfeld.ca X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.8 (2007-02-13) on ricky.arionetworks.ca X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.4 required=5.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.1.8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed X-SA-Exim-Version: 4.2 X-SA-Exim-Scanned: Yes (on mx1.arionetworks.ca) Subject: Backup advice 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: Thu, 24 May 2007 00:06:41 -0000 So I feel a need to start backing up my servers. To that end, I've decided that it's easier for me to grab an external USB drive instead of a tape. It would seem dump/restore are the tools of choice. My backup strategy is pretty much "I don't want to be screwed if my RAID goes away". That said I have a few questions along those lines: - Most articles I've read suggest a full backup, followed by incremental backups. Is there any real reason to adopt that format for a backup strategy like mine, or is it reasonable to just do a dump 0 nightly? I think the only reason to do just one full backup per 'cycle' would be to preserve system resources, as I'm sure it's fairly taxing on the system during dump 0 times. - Can dump incrementally update an existing dump, or is the idea that a dump is a closed file and nothing except restore should ever touch it? - How much does running a backup through gzip actually save? Is taxing the system to compress the dump and the extra time it takes actually worth it, assuming I have enough space on my backup drive to support a dump 0 or two? - Other folks dumping to a hard drive at night? Care to share any of your experiences/rationale? Thanks in advance.