From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 24 02:03:44 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 88E3616A400 for ; Thu, 24 May 2007 02:03:44 +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 671A513C44B for ; Thu, 24 May 2007 02:03:44 +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 1Hr2g2-000GhK-DP for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Wed, 23 May 2007 22:03:43 -0400 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.3) In-Reply-To: <23E233D0-EBD1-4779-8334-8124031CDD64@lafn.org> References: <28E0DBBA-BB24-4D6B-AE65-07EB5254025C@lixfeld.ca> <23E233D0-EBD1-4779-8334-8124031CDD64@lafn.org> Message-Id: From: Jason Lixfeld Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 22:03:40 -0400 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org 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-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-SA-Exim-Version: 4.2 X-SA-Exim-Scanned: Yes (on mx1.arionetworks.ca) Subject: Re: 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 02:03:44 -0000 On 23-May-07, at 9:23 PM, Doug Hardie wrote: > The criteria for selecting a backup approach is not the backup > methodology but the restore methodology. Excellent point. Perhaps I'm asking the wrong question, so let me try it this way instead: I'm looking for a backup solution that I can rely on in the event I have a catastrophic server failure. Ideally this backup would look and act much like a clone of the production system. In the worse case, I'd re-format the server array and copy the clone back to the server, setup the boot blocks, and that would be it. Ideally this clone should be verifiable, meaning I should be able to verify it's integrity so that it's not going to let me down if I need it. I'm thinking external USB hard drive of at least equal size to the server array size as far as hardware goes, but I'm lost as far as software goes. Any advice appreciated.