[H-GEN] Linux backup tool of choice

[Anthony Towns]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2003 at 04:21:09PM +1000, Russell Stuart wrote:
> If you provide a backup system that uses an unreliable drive,
> then do a verify that does a bit for bit check automatically after the
> backup.  This is often hard because file systems are rarely static for
> that long.  So instead use a better tape drive - one that reads the data
> it has just written using a separate head.

Although, with the size of disks these days, you can usually just dedicate
a bunch of space on the disk to be a snapshot of your active set -- ie:

	rm -rf /srv/backup
	cp -a /srv/data /srv/backup	
	tar czvf - /srv/backup > /dev/st0
	tar tzvf - /srv/backup < /dev/st0

Even better, for minor failures you have a recent online backup, which
can be a lot more convenient than searching for one or two files on a
tape. That sort of technique can also be used to speed up your writes
to the tape (by dumping the compressed backup to disk, so you only have
to blat bits around rather than doing work than can take a variable
amount of time), which is how Amanda operates. 

There are also horror stories about tape drives that appear to work fine,
but have subtle problems in that they write tapes that only they can
read -- even a drive of the exact same model of the exact brand won't
manage to do a restore.

Cheers,
aj

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj at humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.

  ``Dear Anthony Towns: [...] Congratulations -- 
        you are now certified as a Red Hat Certified Engineer!''
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