[buug] Backups [Was: Trapped in Upgrade Hell]

James Howard buug at multivax.net
Mon Mar 8 19:52:56 PST 2004


On Mon, 8 Mar 2004, Rick Moen wrote:

> Quoting James Howard (buug at multivax.net):
> 
> > FWIW: On my home system, I have /home and /var on a RAID-1 mirror.  Files
> > from /home, /var /etc, and some others are backed up fully and
> > incrementally to an alternating pair of removable ide drives. I have 
> > roughly 4 copies of my data at various states to protect against both 
> > mechanical failure, and to a lesser extent, other types of loss.
> 
> Four generations of copies isn't really backup in any serious sense of
> the term:  You either have snapshot so far apart in time that much of 
> the change history is totally missing, or the backups go so little
> distance into the past as to provide zero ability to recover from, say, a
> hardware fault that is subtly corrupted your files six months ago.
>

Actually, it isn't 4 merely generations of copies. It's four fulls, with 
incrementals. Furthermore, you're making a lot of assumptions about the 
nature of my data.

> That having been said, admittedly it's a great deal more than almost all
> home users bother to do.
> 
> Oh, by the way, you store all those drive off-site, right?  So the same
> fire or theft can't steal both your system and your backups?  (Thought
> not.)
>

Your presumption is correct. It's called a 'firesafe'. 
 
> By the way^2:  So, you power down your system every time you attach or
> remove backup media?  (Ick!)  Or do you actually trust your hardware and
> data to {shudder} IDE hotswap?
> 

It's not a problem for me. I power my system down whenever I'm asleep.

> > In the end, I found the cheap ide drive solution to be faster, more cost 
> > effective, and convenient than a more stable (albeit expensive) tape 
> > solution.
> 
> With only four generations (almost real backup), that's very likely the
> way the economic comparison works out.  For real backup, it wouldn't.

Then what, pray tell, constitutes "real backup" according to Nick Moffit? 



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