[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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