I used to use cron and rsync. The --copy-dest --link-dest options allow for some really really interesting options.
rsync --copy-dest /path/to/dailybackup server:/ /path/to/fullbackup rsync --compare-dest /path/to/fullbackup server:/ /path/to/dailybackup copy-dest/compare-dest options allow you to compare against a third location and copy/link to it appropriately. So for above the copy dest says copy from the most recent daily and the source server to /path/to/fullbackup. The compare-dest then said look at this directory and the source server and only copy files not in either. If there are deltas it uses the local compare-dest to source the file. The result was a weekly full backup and a daily incremental backup. I backed up NetWare servers over 768k links like this for years. It took FOREVER for the first backups to occur but once I got the first full done the dailies and subsequent weeklies took < 1-2 hrs. After getting the files to disk I put them on tape and I was in a situation like you where my backups spanned multiple tapes so I copied each weekly to tape which took 2 days but since I could run it during the day it didn't matter. Then each subsequent daily went on a single tape each day. I had two tape drives, an LTO-2 for the weeklies and an LTO-1 that I ran the dailies to. I just used BackupExec to do those one day after their corresponding cron jobs. The weekly took 2 days to put on tape but since once rsync was done the files were just sitting there on the disk it didn't matter. I would pop a tape in Friday, Monday BackupExec would start copying the fulls to tape. Some time Monday night it would ask for another tape which I would insert Tuesday. The full finished Tuesday before I left which meant I could take them off site. HTH -Alan On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 4:02 PM, Jessie A. Morris <[email protected]> wrote: > Bacula also allows for backing up to files or directories. I currently have > this set up and life is good. I would give a hearty recommendation to Bacula. > -- > Jessie A. Morris > 801-210-1526 > [email protected] > > On Monday, February 25, 2013 15:56:23 Tod Hansmann wrote: >> I'm looking at replacing work's current tape backup system. Currently, >> this is a poblem where we're using tapes of a certain size, and we're >> maxing out that size so it's spilling over to two tapes, which is messing >> up rotations. Getting bigger tapes in this instance requires upgrading the >> tape system, which is ridiculously expensive. So, disk storage being cheap >> as all get, and easy to implement (physically anyway), I figured I'd look >> at that direction. >> >> We have Windows servers and a lot more Linux servers to backup bits from. >> Every piece of software I've looked at sucks, and very few of them want to >> do DAS targets. DAS would probably make managing the drives for swapping >> out easier, but that's just my opinion. Not to mention, all the software I >> have found is also rather expensive for managing the copying of files. I'd >> pay a few hundred for something, but everything I've found either doesn't >> do DAS (online is the new thing, unless you have TBs of data to backup and >> can't do that online) or kills you in all the "agents" licenses they'd need. >> >> What have you seen that isn't crap and will backup to a local disk I can >> then swap out like a tape? Also, Amanda is cool, but I can't seem to find >> any docs about DAS as a target. The enterprise zmanda does, but Amanda >> seems fairly limited. I might mess with it if someone has better >> experience than my VERY limited exposure. >> >> (As an aside, seriously, backup software sucks, especially in the restore >> area. What ever happened to backing up files and then just giving me a >> dialog to choose what files and what timeslice I wanted to restore them >> to? Why is that so difficult for backup vendors to get?) >> >> Cheers, >> -Tod Hansmann >> >> /* >> PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net >> Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug >> Don't fear the penguin. >> */ > > /* > PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net > Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug > Don't fear the penguin. > */ /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
