Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2011 11:59:11 +0100 From: Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ZFS on root backup Message-ID: <4E1AD77F.7050900@infracaninophile.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <4E1ACE74.2040809@nagual.nl> References: <4E1ACE74.2040809@nagual.nl>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 2440 and 3156) --------------enigE09801D484BDB438124DBDB6 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On 11/07/2011 11:20, Dick Hoogendijk wrote: > OK, so now my ZFS on root FreeBSD-8.2 system runs smoothly and I'm very= > happy being able to have ZFS (coming from solaris11), but.. what is the= > best strategy to back this fbsd system up. do I create various ZFS > backup filesystem streams or can I easely backup the zroot pool as a > whole? And if yes, how? > Grateful for all the help I can get in these matters. Well, the best backup strategy is a very site specific thing. There's no one-size-fits-all answer. Suppose your machine caught fire right now. You're always going to lose some data -- everything that changed since the last backup. How much data can you afford to lose like that? A day's worth? A week's worth? Absolutely none at all? Given your server is destroyed, how fast do you need to get it back? Can you wait for a week in order to source replacement kit? Or does every second of lost uptime cost you significant amounts of money? Now imagine the ultimate disaster scenario: typically something like -- a fully loaded jumbo jet crashes into your datacenter and everything is completely destroyed[*]. Will your backups survive? Can you rebuild your system using those backups? Suppose someone stole your backup media: can they extract all your data from them, and does it matter if they do? Those are the sorts of questions you need to think about when designing a backup system. There's nothing particularly specific about ZFS there. What ZFS does get you in terms of backups are two things: 1) Really easy and unlimited amounts of snap-shotting. As well as making it really simple to get a coherent point-in-time backup of an active filesystem, they also give you a really simple 'undo' type functionality, so you can unwind accidental deletions and other user mistakes. 2) ZFS import and export -- again, exploiting the snap-shotting capability, this makes it pretty easy to create a duplicate of your filesystem onto another host, and to update the duplicate in a very efficient way. Cheers, Matthew [*] As a number of companies found out to their cost, 'in the basement of the other tower' was not sufficiently off-site to be effective. --=20 Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 7 Priory Courtyard Flat 3 PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Ramsgate JID: matthew@infracaninophile.co.uk Kent, CT11 9PW --------------enigE09801D484BDB438124DBDB6 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.16 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk4a14cACgkQ8Mjk52CukIy0RACeNPCUR/9aqDUI6dhVRousPfny zvwAnR0A6Y/9c1amEriQ867KDsi+MlbD =BdG6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------enigE09801D484BDB438124DBDB6--
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?4E1AD77F.7050900>