From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jul 15 14:38:38 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-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 EE26316A41C for ; Fri, 15 Jul 2005 14:38:38 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from helge.preuss@gmail.com) Received: from wproxy.gmail.com (wproxy.gmail.com [64.233.184.203]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7DF5B43D48 for ; Fri, 15 Jul 2005 14:38:38 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from helge.preuss@gmail.com) Received: by wproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id i7so619760wra for ; Fri, 15 Jul 2005 07:38:37 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:user-agent:x-accept-language:mime-version:to:cc:subject:references:in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=b4RiBoBUJbX/anPl/SseA+OnzmxF8j2M60KuC26uV3n9mwJrioMnDhrFQbhUsuSu3RUMzU2MPfAYQcv9ifvFoGRmU6Kcx1HEKjFkd3mPrEnSC4GSoBWuDpG0mBqwSgodVOyvVktzzQiwUAfBwwF5EdoNis7w+vbWJgbG+dMEkS0= Received: by 10.54.34.67 with SMTP id h67mr419059wrh; Fri, 15 Jul 2005 07:38:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ?192.168.128.143? ([62.8.202.38]) by mx.gmail.com with ESMTP id 14sm3578474wrl.2005.07.15.07.38.36; Fri, 15 Jul 2005 07:38:37 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <42D7CA68.10707@gmail.com> Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 16:38:32 +0200 From: Helge Preuss User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2 (X11/20050317) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Nick Barnes References: <38171.1121430073@thrush.ravenbrook.com> In-Reply-To: <38171.1121430073@thrush.ravenbrook.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: better disk reliability on a desktop machine 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: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 14:38:39 -0000 [...] >So I'm thinking I probably want to move to a RAID mirror filesystem, >and keep some sort of quality backups offsite. > >1. RAID mirror filesystem questions: > >1a: should this be vinum? I have read and can follow the handbook > instructions for a vinum root filesystem. > >1b: Will it help to upgrade to 5.x, to get this to go smoothly? > >2. taking backups offsite. Seems to me that the best route is a > number of external firewire hard disks. This machine doesn't have > motherboard firewire, so I'll need to get a PCI firewire board. > >2a: Recommendations for an affordable PCI firewire board? > >2b: Should I upgrade to 5.x for the better firewire hardware support? > > If you have to reinstall anyway, why not upgrade to 5 in any case, while you're at it. Just an overall opinion unrelated to your technical questions. And yes, at least for firewire, I'm quite positive that 5 has far better support. >3c: Opinions on using firewire hard disks for this at all? Would I be > better off writing DVDs? > >3. making backups. > >3a: I'm used to dump/restore, but it seems to me that rsync might be a > better tool for this, as it would allow me to mount and browse the > backup. Opinions? > > I used rsync for a while, and given your question, I would advocate for it. Recently I discovered a backup solution that suits me much better: subversion. Granted, backups are not what it was originally written for, but I was intrigued by the ides of using a version control system for backups, as I can easily back up and restore every change I make. I have the subversion repository on an external HDD, and commit the changes every couple of hours per cronjob, or manually if I make important changes. The repository is backed up on DVD regularly. Pros: Performs much better than rsync, and is more flexible, IMO. And of course the possibility of using version control on all your files. Cons: it was not trivial to set up, and if you have not set up a version control system before, it can cause severe head-scratching (you have been warned). Also, it uses twice as much space on the local disk as before. I don't use the version control on my Multimedia collection, but this changes slowly anyway and thus an occasional backup on DVD is alright with me.