Re: Regarding tar and split

On Sat, Oct 13, 2007 at 10:16:03AM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote:
On Fri, Oct 12, 2007 at 10:07:28PM -0600, Paul E Condon wrote:
On Sat, Oct 13, 2007 at 02:59:32AM +0000, Sean Zimmermann wrote:
<snip...>
I have one final question: some people have brought up the strength of
programs like afio that compress files individually to protect against
corruption. Most of the things I archive are large image or movie files
(which typically don't compress well). I read through most of both
tar's and afio's man pages, and afio seems to have some interesting
features (like the ability to seek to blocks in an archive). If I
am not compressing the archive, does afio and/or cpio still have
benefits that make it more appealing than tar?


I have about 80 GB of various stuff on my computer. I have a second
computer for backups. I use 'cp -au --backup=t ...' to copy new
versions of files onto the backup computer early every morning, and
keep all prior versions of the changed files. No archive format, No
compression. I've written backup script that keeps track of file
deletions. Mostly I have used by backup to recover things that I have
damaged by user error. I've not yet ever had a hardware error that
lost my data. The directory tree on the backup machine grows slowly
as I work on things. Some day I'll have to work on a script to strip
out really old versions of some files. Or maybe I'll just buy a newer
bigger HD for the backup.

I also buy an external USB drive from Costco when they have a
expecially good price and copy a whole image onto it and put it away
for safe keeping.

I was following this thread to see if I was missing any good tricks. I
think I'll stick with what I'm doing already. IMO, what you need depends
on what you do with your computer, what kind of error that leads to,
and what kind of loss you would find really painful. I don't backup the
Debian software. Its better for me to just reinstall from a repository.

Instead of cp, you may want to look at rsync. You can either go plain
over the network to the rsync server on the other box, or rsync can use
ssh as a tunnel so that everything on the network is encryted. The
advantage of rsync is that it only sends the difference so is very fast
for daily small changes.

It doesn't appear from the man page that rsync has the equivalent of
cp --backup=t
I use this and it is important to me. Nothing ever is deleted from my
backup until I do a clean-up sweep on it (which I have never yet done).

My post was done mainly to suggest to Sean that he is unlikely to find
consensus on how best to do periodic backups, and that he should think
about what really worries him and how to address that. For some backup
strategies that I have seen discussed, it seems to me visiting a
psychiatrist would be more healthy. ;-)

My second reason for responding was to encourage others to respond with
descriptions of what they do. I'd be interested in reading them, too.


If you have a spare computer (OK, that will at least install/run Debian
Etch), you can put some drives in it, set it up for raid1, and use it as
a dedicated backup server. Turn it on to do backups then turn it off
and (perhaps) disconnect it from everything to decrease the risk of
environmental damage (e.g. power surge).

Or, on the one box, set up raid1 pairs with one drive internal and the
other external. To take a backup off-site, remove a drive from the
array. If something bad happens, put that drive in a bare-metal box and
boot it, then add a second drive to the array and you're back in
business.

Doug.


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