Thomas Hurst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > * Carlos Silva aka |Danger_Man| ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > > > what is the best method to backup network information and local disk > > information with another disk? > > dump/restore performs snapshotted incremental backups of complete > filesystems.
I have been using venti from plan9ports (a set of plan9 programs ported to unix like OSes) for the past few months now. See http://swtch.com/plan9ports Features: - backup ufs1 and ufs2 over the net to a venti server - Initial full backup seems faster than dump's level 0 backup (I get about 3 to 7 MBps to a USB2 disk). - Saves only one copy of every distinct block no matter which file it belongs to or how many times you give it to venti => less filling, more nutricious! - Every backup is a full backup but because of the above feature venti stores only changed or new blocks. This incremental backup works at close to max disk speed. (I can backup a 30GB filesystem in under 25 minutes to a USB2 disk). Speed of the disk being backed up is the bottleneck so you can simulteneously backup multiple disks to utilize a venti server's full disk/net bandwidth. This is fast enough that backing up everything every night actually works! - each backup returns a single `score'. This serves as a handle to grab the same backup later on. - you can nfs mount the backups. *every* snapshot is available. For example, /dump/my-host/2005/1105/usr. - you can ftp browse a specific backup by giving its score. - You can recreate the image of a partition as per a specific backup. For instance 'vcat <score> > /dev/da0s1e' will recreate a specific disk image. You can then mount it just like a normal disk partition. Though I'd much prefer it if md(4) did this as then it can fetch data on demand. mdconfig -a -t venti -v <venti-server> -s <score> It still has some warts (for example its security model doesn't quite work well for a full restore and you have to resort to vcat) but overall it has been a vast improvement over dump/restore for me. venti can also be used back up file trees like tar does. Venti is close to a Ginsu knife of archiving:-) -- bakul _______________________________________________ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
