[lug] Backup to 2nd HD with dd & rsync?

[The Matt]

On Thu, 2003-01-23 at 20:10, Timothy C. Klein wrote:
> * Thomas R. Detman (tdet at sec.noaa.gov) wrote:
> > I have two hard disks spinning in my workstation.
> > I would like to use one as a backup for the other, 
> > --> if it isn't too too complicated.
> > One is a SCSI and the other is IDE.  (A result of history, not plan.)
> > The SCSI is the one I use, it is 17 GB, ext3, with 4 partitions.
> > The IDE could be wiped. It is 12 GB, ext2, with 2 partitions.
> > Every thing stored on the SCSI only takes up only 10.5 GB.
> > 
> > Me thinks I'de start by using dd to copy the "stuff" on the SCSI 
> > onto the IDE, wiping out previous IDE contents in the process. 
> > (Doing such "stuff" is outside my envelope of knowledge and comfort.)
> > 
> > Next I'de set up a cron job to keep the IDE drive up to date as
> > a "mirror" of the SCSI drive using rsync.  The rsync web page:
> > http://rsync.samba.org/ seems to suggest this is just the kind of
> > thing rsync was made for.
> > 
> > I think I might be able to muddle thru the rsync part, but even
> > after reading the man and info pages on dd, it still seems like
> > black magic to me.
> 
> Check out this link:
> 
> http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/
> 
> This guy wrote a nice HOWTO with scripts you can download, very easy to
> customize.  I use it.  It uses hard links to make very space efficient
> backups of whatever you want on a second hard disk.  Mine runs every
> four hours.

For similar efforts to these, I'd recommend the backups chapter in
O'Reilly's "Linux Server Hacks".  Luckily, it just happens to be the
sample chapter that O'Reilly has up (and is currently the headliner "new
book"):

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxsvrhack/chapter/index.html

It also has the rsync+hard link type backups, which I think is best for
your situation, but it also goes into other topics, such as the
not-oft-seen pax archiver.  (At least, I don't seem to see pax used that
often anymore, I guess tar beat cpio and it's "successor" pax.)  I still
use pax to move directory structures, though I guess still use tar for
most archiving.

Matt Thompson
-- 
"And isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony, anyway?  I mean,
all you get is one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good
and crazy, ooh ooh ooh, the sky's the limit!" -- The Tick
  The Matt -- http://ucsub.colorado.edu/~thompsma/
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