FWIW, I switched from tar to rsync because my backups were too large for tar, at a few hundred gigs. Also worth mention, that was Mac OSX 10.4 Tiger tar. Not linux whatever-version tar. So there's possibility an os specific limitation.
> -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On > Behalf Of David Allan > Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 4:54 PM > To: Richard 'Doc' Kinne > Cc: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [BBLISA] System Backup thoughts and questions... > > I think there are probably as many answers to this question as there > are > members of this list, but I have found tar to be a simple and effective > solution for this sort of problem, although I can't say I've tried it > on > anything approaching that number of files: > > tar cf - /source/directory | ( cd /backup/directory ; tar xvf - ) > > Looking forward to the discussion thread, > Dave > > > On Thu, 8 Jan 2009, Richard 'Doc' Kinne wrote: > > > Hi Folks: > > > > I'm looking at backups - simple backups right now. > > > > We have a strategy where an old computer is mounted with a large > external, > > removable hard drive. Directories - large directories - that we have > on our > > other production servers are mounted on this small computer via NFS. > A cron > > job then does a simple "cp" from the NFS mounted production drive > partitions > > to to the large, external, removable hard drive. > > > > I thought it was an elegant solution, myself, except for one small, > niggling > > detail. > > > > It doesn't work. > > > > The process doesn't copy all the files. Oh, we're not having a > problem with > > file locks, no. When you do a "du -sh <directory>" comparison between > the > > /scsi/web directory on the backup drive and the production /scsi/web > > directory the differences measure in the GB. For example my > production /scsi > > partition has 62GB on it. The most recently done backup has 42GB on > it! > > > > What our research found is that the cp command apparently has a limit > of > > copying 250,000 inodes. I have image directories on the webserver > that have > > 114,000 files so this is the limit I think I'm running into. > > > > While I'm looking at solutions like Bacula and Amanda, etc., I'm > wondering if > > RSYNCing the files may work. Or will I run into the same limitation? > > > > Any thoughts? > > --- > > Richard 'Doc' Kinne, [KQR] > > American Association of Variable Star Observers > > <rkinne @ aavso.org> > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > bblisa mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.bblisa.org/mailman/listinfo/bblisa _______________________________________________ bblisa mailing list [email protected] http://www.bblisa.org/mailman/listinfo/bblisa
