Re: [rdiff-backup-users] SpecialFileError, UpdateError

[Felix E. Klee]

At Tue, 6 Jun 2006 19:10:19 +0000 (GMT),
Chris Wilson wrote:
> > I intend to set up nightly backups as well, but often I work on sth.
> > important, and then I want to make quick backups, e.g. before taking
> > my laptop out of house.  They should not take more than about 5
> > minutes.
> 
> You might find it easier to have a different backup mechanism in that
> case, maybe combined with rdiff-backup. Something like Subversion or
> star, might suit you very well for small numbers of changed files,
> while being less convenient for whole system backups and restores.

So, you think that 5 minutes for rdiff-backup'ing a small incremental of
a 7 GB file system won't be possible in the near future?

> Box Backup also has a test suite and a lot of users. I think there's
> no substitute for regularly comparing your backups and running test
> restores, whatever application you use.

True.  But the test suite really does make it more attractive to me.

> >  - One can compress and encrypt them at will.
> 
> If one has time to compress and encrypt those 30 GB files, and also if
> one doesn't mind that a bad disk block will destroy the remainder of
> the tar file.

As I tend to keep all my backups, it's not that much of a problem if the
backup of one month fails, and ...

> >  - One can easily write them to DVDs.
> 
> That is true, but the bad sector argument applies here too.

I always wrote them unencrypted and uncompressed to DVD, and I always
added MD5 sums of the tar archives.  Also, I used to keep last month's
backup on disk and on DVD.

> >  - One can easily send data over the Internet, say every week's
> >    dump, compressed and encrypted.
> 
> But you can't send your full dumps over the Internet unless you don't mind 
> tying up your connection for several days.

The problem is: I don't want to back up directly to the Internet.  I'd
like to be able to quickly back up to the LinkStation, and then the
LinkStation should take care of backing up to a server on the Internet.
I doubt that this two stage backup process is feasible with BoxBackup,
but to be honest: Thus far, I've never backed up more than a couple of
MB to a server on the Internet, so I've close to no experience in this
area.

> But you can't send your full dumps over the Internet unless you don't mind 
> tying up your connection for several days.

At least every two months I want to create a full dump, no matter which
tool I use, better every month.  Of course, I'd only include important
data which totals at about 3GB.  Important data, in my case, includes
almost all the data (except emails) that I authored, including my first
Basic programs created more than 15 years ago.

> > The disadvantage is that it's very cumbersome to get back to old data
> > since one has to play back, say, three archives.
> 
> At least three, possibly many more, depending on your strategy.

I wasn't thinking: Back when I was using "star", I usually used level 0
(roughly every month), level 1 (roughly every week), and level 2 dumps
(roughly every day).  So, on average I would've had to play back between
four and five backups.

-- 
Felix E. Klee