Etienne Robillard <robillard.etienne () gmail ! com> wrote
> i kinda like cpio for fast backup of filesystems... for large media
> files (think anime movies) -- I think its generally best to just
> burn them on a iso..

I have found rsync to an external usb hard disk to work very nicely;
these are now cheap and readily available up to over a terabyte.
Here are a few notes from my experience using this strategy for the
past several years:
* With rsync, the initial backup does a full copy, but then future
  backups automatically only copy changed files.
* I found that performance went from "painfully slow" to "ok" when I
  switched my external disks from ext2fs to ffs mounted softdep,noatime.
* I have had no problems with single files as big as 5 GB.
* For extra disaster-insurance I actually use a pair of external disks,
  one at home and one at my office.  I swap them every week or so.
* Backups can be a security risk, since anyone who steals the backup
  medium has instant access to all the files stored there.  This is a
  great use for encrypting filesystems, eg svnd, raidctl, or cfs (ports).
* Backups need to be hassle-free and as tired-system-administrator--proof
  as possible, so it's good to script the process.  I use scripts like
  the following:
     #!/bin/sh
     set -x
     rsync -aHESvv --delete \
           --exclude '/home/jonathan/crypt/*' \
           --exclude '/mnt/oxygen/home/jonathan/crypt/*' \
           /home/jonathan/ /mnt/oxygen/home/jonathan/
  This works fine except that the --exclude options are not honored
  (files under those directories are still copied).  I don't know what's
  wrong there...

-- 
-- "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]" 
<jth...@astro.indiana-zebra.edu>
   Dept of Astronomy, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
   "Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
    powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
                                      -- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

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