On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 2:59 AM, Jonathan Thornburg
<jth...@astro.indiana.edu> wrote:
> 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.

thanks. this gives me some pointers to implement a better backup
strategy. i also use a similar setup, except that i don't have
multiple disks (no backup for the backup).

> * 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...
[...]

how about using double-quotes instead? for eg., --exclude
"/home/jonathan/crypt/*". your shell might be preventing rsync from
looking what's inside the quotes...

-amarendra

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