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
