From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Nov 1 07:17:03 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 32521106564A for ; Mon, 1 Nov 2010 07:17:03 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from j.mckeown@ru.ac.za) Received: from f.mail.ru.ac.za (f.mail.ru.ac.za [IPv6:2001:4200:1010::25:6]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 34C548FC12 for ; Mon, 1 Nov 2010 07:17:02 +0000 (UTC) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=ru-msa; d=ru.ac.za; h=Received:From:Organization:To:Subject:Date:User-Agent:References:In-Reply-To:X-Face:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding:Content-Disposition:Message-Id:X-Virus-Scanned:X-Authenticated-User; b=RiPLgHdCP8Y0BoBWj1kHurBtEC9U/EsAk9+UAe0/afz/EfHizLSA1lLUUP9yttcfLwUiYQPKEwD5fu+Q0dXG/KQ4IJQTjAgTXNpTHnss4YoB2T427fCMFSSNdXm5/2xA; Received: from vorkosigan.ru.ac.za ([2001:4200:1010:1058:219:d1ff:fe9f:a932]:57368) by f.mail.ru.ac.za with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.69 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1PCodX-000A4i-Ey for freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org; Mon, 01 Nov 2010 09:16:59 +0200 From: Jonathan McKeown Organization: Rhodes University To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2010 09:16:58 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.10 References: <4ccdcdaa.XSDkZZUUYXDXpkXV%perryh@pluto.rain.com> <201010312044.o9VKiPwG049615@apollo.backplane.com> In-Reply-To: <201010312044.o9VKiPwG049615@apollo.backplane.com> X-Face: $@VrUx^RHy/}yu]jKf/<4T%/d|F+$j-Ol2"2J$q+%OK1]&/G_S9(=?utf-8?q?HkaQ*=60!=3FYOK=3FY!=27M=60C=0A=09aP=5C9nVPF8Q=7DCilHH8l=3B=7E!4?= =?utf-8?q?2HK6=273lg4J=7Daz?=@1Dqqh:J]M^"YPn*2IWrZON$1+G?oX3@ =?utf-8?q?k=230=0A=0954XDRg=3DYn=5FF-etwot4U=24b?=dTS{i X-Virus-Scanned: f.mail.ru.ac.za (2001:4200:1010::25:6) X-Authenticated-User: s0900137 from vorkosigan.ru.ac.za (2001:4200:1010:1058:219:d1ff:fe9f:a932) using auth_plaintext Subject: Re: Slow disk access while rsync - what should I tune? X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2010 07:17:03 -0000 On Sunday 31 October 2010 22:44:25 Matthew Dillon wrote: > :> and the output produced by dump is not live-accessible whereas a > :> snapshot / live filesystem copy is. That makes the dump fairly > :> worthless for anything other than catastrophic recovery. > : > :Ever heard of "restore -i"? > > Have you ever tried to restore a single file from a 2 Terrabyte dump > file ? Or even better, if you are using incremental dumps, try > restoring a single file from 6 dump files. > > I'm not saying that dump/restore is completely unusable, I'm saying > that it MOSTLY unusable for the use cases people have today for > backups. I'd argue that if you're routinely restoring single files, you aren't managing your time or your users' expectations properly. Backups are /for/ catastrophic recovery, imo, and users shouldn't expect systems staff to be routinely restoring single files they've inadvertently deleted. Users need to realise that when you delete something it goes away: that's what delete does, which is why you're usually asked to confirm it. Restoring single files for individual users should be very much a special case and not a routine service; otherwise you risk being snowed under with file recovery requests. Jonathan