Once you have the system installed, check to see how much space is needed. You can then set up a new disk with a partition just over the space needed on the drive. This would allow you to create a backup image with dd quicker then doing the whole drive. Then burn the image onto another drive that you keep on the shelf for backup. Just save copies of the changes that you make in case the current drive tanks. The same methods apply to the CF cards too.
Gregg On Sun, 2009-06-07 at 22:14 -0700, Jeff Lasman wrote: > Followup: > > I've built the system using a 40G drive of which I'm quite confident. > It's running almost nothing. Pretty much just iptables and a text > editor so I can set up more forwarding as required. I'm expecting to > move it to the datacenter some time Monday, but in the meantime I'm > burning it in here. > > Jeff
