Re ext hdd

[Bryan O'Neal]

I am not sure why you are using multiple back up dirs. If you want
revisioning so you can see your file as it was on X and as it was on Y
and compare to how it is not you should use RSnapshot. Every day keeps
a full directory structure so finding you files is easy but under that
it uses hardlinks and rsync chunk magic to ensure the space used for
each snapshot is only the differential change.
mind you while I have done a number of presentations on backups and
disaster recovery and have more then a bit of corporate experience, I
almost never back up at home unless I can do it off site.

On 7/16/11, Joseph Sinclair <plug-discussion at stcaz.net> wrote:
> rsync will treat each dir as a separate backup; you'll want to rotate to new
> directories only when you want to move to a new backup (e.g. each month or
> so).
>
> The filesystem on the destination does not have to match the filesystem on
> the source (so it's OK to have ext3 on your homedir and back that up to
> XFS).
>
> The main backup dir would be the directory that contains all the rotating
> backup directories.
> e.g. (MyBackups is the main backup directory in this example)
> /media/backup_disk
> +
>  | MyBackups
>  |+
>    | 20110716T190000
>    | 20110816T190000
>    | 20110916T190000
>    | 20111016T190000
>
> That way you use rsync to keep a current backup in the latest directory and
> every so often (perhaps monthly) you start a new directory.
>
> The first backup in each directory takes a while (consider that a "full
> backup") while it only takes a few minutes to update each (e.g.) day until
> the next full backup.
>
> That way you have a longer backup window (several months) when you can
> recover something lost or accidentally deleted.
>
> I don't know the details of your current process, so I'm basing this off of
> your description of what you had planned to do with partitions.
>
> The command to make each monthly directory would look something like this:
>   mkdir -p /media/backup_disk/MyBackups/$(date '+%Y%m%dT%H%M')
> or this if you don't want the time in the directory name:
>   mkdir -p /media/backup_disk/MyBackups/$(date '+%Y%m%d')
>
>
> On 07/16/2011 08:44 PM, betty wrote:
>> Thanks, your response -  was very clear. only thing i'm not sure about is
>> the naming a "main back up directory".
>> so does that mean that after i format it for ext4 or xfs that  i make a
>> dir. called
>>> /media/backup_disk/MyBackups/20110716T190000/).
>> ?
>> then on subsequent back ups i name them for example
>>> /media/backup_disk/MyBackups/20110816T190000/).(note month change)
>> what prevents rsync from thinking that this is a whole new dir? I guess
>> i'm not clear on what a 'main backup dir' is.
>>
>> can i use xfs as the format if my current home dir is on ext3 or 4?
>> Thanks,
>> betty i
>>
>>
>>
>> On 07/16/2011 07:48 PM, Joseph Sinclair wrote:
>>> For backup, you can rsync to a directory named for the date under a main
>>> backup directory (e.g. /media/backup_disk/MyBackups/20110716T190000/).
>>> This has several advantages over using a lot of small partitions:
>>>    1) Using different directories on a single partition makes it easier
>>> to manage all the data (plus you don't hit the limits on the number of
>>> partitions permitted on a device).
>>>    2) It avoids the problem of figuring out which partition to mount for
>>> a backup without mounting them all and searching through the contents.
>>>    3) It makes rotation simpler (just delete anything more than X days
>>> old after a backup if the disk is getting more than Y% full).
>>>    4) With the right directory names (like the example above) you can
>>> find the most recent backup easily as well.
>>
>>
>
>

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