Re: [Duplicity-talk] are periodic full backups necessary?

[Peter Schuller]

> Another idea might be to use an encrypted virtual volume and to use hard 
> links in it, like some tools do.
> With hard links, it's pretty easy to implement backward diffs.
> And confidentiality is ensured, since it's only a huge file.

The problem I have with this is that performance tends to *SUCK*,
particularly with high latency, since the number of synchronous reads
will be a *lot* higher when running a file system on this device, than
the "one per file" style when the remote part of the backup is at a
higher level.

If it were not for this, I would love it. In fact if this were not an
issue, I would likely run rdiff-backup on encrypted remote devices in
some cases where I now use duplicity.

I also think it puts a higher strain on the remote storage. That is,
you become a lot more dependent on the remote store correctly
implementing the appropriate semantics (write barriers and so
on). This is another reason why I probably would not use this in
practice, except under some very special circumstances where I
controlled both ends and had done a lot of testing and was somehow
comfortable with it.

-- 
/ Peter Schuller

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