Rich Shepard wrote: > On Fri, 21 May 2010, Tim Wescott wrote: > > >> What is your preferred backup system? >> Suggestions? >> > > Dirvish <http://www.dirvish.org/>. > > The docs are a bit obtuse, but the help on the mail list is outstanding. > I switched from tape to an external, USB hard drive (300G currently) and use > dirvish running daily from root's crontab. > > I used to make weekly full backups and daily incremental backups; now each > night's backup (using rsync) are the changes from the night before. You can > restore the system to any prior state (or restore individual files) as long > as you have them on the drive. You can exclude filesystems (e.g., /tmp) > where files disappear so they don't have a revised version for dirvish to > find and copy. You can set expiration periods however you want; I keep daily > backups for 2 weeks and full backups for a month. Keith keeps everything > forever. > > While you'll spend time getting your head around how it works and setting > up banks (hosts), vaults (filesystems), the initial storage drive directory > setup, and initial images, it's worth the effort. Once that's done you'll > have complete images of your systems ... as long as you remember to turn on > the backup drive each evening. :-) > Dirvish.org lists version 1.2.1 "Baby step incremental" and 1.3.1 "Experimental only". The web site doesn't seem to have been updated since 2008.
And I recall a talk that Kieth gave a _long_ time ago pointing out that Dirvish had trouble with USB drives. My intent is to keep two USB drives, and swap which one is plugged into the server every night. Since my office lives in a detached garage I want to take advantage of the fire protection and back up from a server in the house -- this way if one or the other buildings burns down I'll still have a copy of my data. Alternating between the two backup disks will give me extra protection if one or the other takes a dump (I remember that Kieth does this, it sounded like a good idea at today's disk prices). If possible I'd like to bring several other computers -- including the server -- into the fold. Wife and elder son both have laptops, even if they are Windows machines, and there's a "family" computer that gets heavily used by younger son. I'd like them to be able to back up to their own spaces. So -- you still recommending Dirvish? -- Tim Wescott Wescott Design Services Voice: 503-631-7815 Cell: 503-349-8432 http://www.wescottdesign.com _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
