> From: Erik Trimble [mailto:erik.trim...@oracle.com] > > Not to be a contrary person, but the job you describe above is properly > the duty of a BACKUP system. Snapshots *aren't* traditional backups, > though some people use them as such. While I see no technical reason > why snapshots couldn't support some form of partial rollback, there's a > whole bunch of other features that Backup software provides that can't > be shoehorned directly into snapshots, so why bother trying to add a > feature that should properly reside elsewhere in the system?
I don't get what you're talking about. The disconnect is: I don't know why you would say this is a task for a backup system, when it's ideally suited to the snapshot system, provided snapshots are available. Allow me to rephrase, and see if that changes anything... One of the most valuable reasons to have snapshots is the ability for users to restore or examine past versions of files instantly, without the need for sysadmin assistance, or lag time waiting for tapes. Snapshots augment the backup system, but do not replace or eliminate the need for backups. Given a filesystem, and some snapshots of that filesystem, all the data for all the versions of all the files already exists on disk. It required essentially no time to link all the files to their respective snapshots. It would be nice, if you wanted to, to be able to link an old version of the file to the present filesystem also in zero time. This is not in any way a suggestion of eliminating or replacing your backup system. Backups are always needed in *addition* to snapshots. Just incase anything ever destroys the pool somehow. _______________________________________________ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
