From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Jan 16 18:48:23 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from w2xo.pgh.pa.us (ipl-229-012.npt-sdsl.stargate.net [208.223.229.12]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B3CFF37B400 for ; Tue, 16 Jan 2001 18:48:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from shazam (shazam [192.168.5.3]) by w2xo.pgh.pa.us (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id CAA96740; Wed, 17 Jan 2001 02:47:52 GMT (envelope-from durham@w2xo.pgh.pa.us) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 21:47:59 -0500 (EST) From: Jim Durham X-Sender: durham@shazam.int To: Bill Moran Cc: Dave VanAuken , freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Poor mans backup solution required In-Reply-To: <3A630DD2.26136B9@mail.iowna.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Mon, 15 Jan 2001, Bill Moran wrote: > Dave VanAuken wrote: > > > Any recommendations for perhaps tar-ing the directory tree to a second > > IDE drive each night, or other solutions involving the cost of adding > > another $100 IDE drive. > > Sounds like you've answered your own question. We've even considered > making a "backup server" on our network that would be used HW (old P90 > or something with 16 or 32M RAM) except for a new, big HDD and just tar > important stuff to an NFS share on a regular basis. > > A second HDD wouldn't be a bad idea either, you could even have a backup > script that mounts the filesystem, does the backup and then unmounts the > filesystem to keep anyone from inadvertantly messing with it. > Ah... great minds running in the same gutter I see. I recently purchased a 30gb IDE drive, put it in an old Gateway P90 and it NFS mounts the "files" partition from the main server. Every night a simple cron script copies any files that have changed. This machine has a full installation of FreeBSD, and in the event of main server "crash and burn", it could be pressed into service. That's another plus of doing this. Also, you can get fancy and make a main backup and then have smaller areas on the drive for a rotating set of deltas. You could keep a week's worth of deltas in 7 smaller directories and be able to rescue user's who screw something up as long as they tell you within a week of doing it. It sure beats backing up 20 gb of data with a 2 gb tape drive! -Jim Durham To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message