I'd like to do one of those "+1" responses to the 2 points mentioned by
Derek, however given it's importance, I'll do:
+2. bold, larger font, upper case etc.
I practice what is preached at work but can't claim the same at home -
with regards to the frequency with which I test those backups. Plus,
since that backup goes about a metre away, if my house burns down, I'm
stuffed...
And don't be like me and think it can't / won't happen to you - it's
only because I woke up extra early one Sunday morning earlier in the
year that my house didn't. Still, not enough to get me checking my
ability to restore fully and keep copies off-site! Perhaps I'll read
this when I get home and actually do something.
Cheers,
Roger
Derek Smithies wrote:
Hi,
Backup is the thing that everyone says you have to do, but few do it
right.
The key part of doing backups is the sentence:
There are two times to test the quality of your backup
a)before disaster hits
b)after disaster hits.
To test your backup - you need to run this scenario and see what happens:
1)the machine you have regularly backed up has now disappeared
completely.
2)you need to recover your data to a second machine
3)does the data recover correctly to a second machine, and can the second
machine now be used instead of the first machine?
The key thing - can you recover to a different machine?
I know one person (not me) who at their business backed up every day.
It was a novel 4 machine. Then things died, and they could only get a
novel 5 machine. The backup would not recover to a novel 5 machine.
So he had to completely install and setup a novel 4 machine, recover
the backup, and proceed.
As you can imagine - this was a longer than hoped for process. It did
not make for many happy campers.
Derek.
On Mon, 17 Nov 2008, Roy Britten wrote:
I'm setting up a backup regime (database dump and file structure) from
a server in the states. rsync seems a sensible tool, and I have a
little experience with it. I've just come across rdiff-backup. It
sounds useful, but I'd like to hear some war stories from folks who
have used it before I go wandering into unknown territory.
Anyone care to comment on rdiff-backup's ease of use (backing up *and*
recovery), robustness, and the like?
Thanks,
Roy.
