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

[Timothy C. Klein]

* 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.

Tim
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==  Timothy Klein || teece at silverklein.net  ==
==  http://i148.denver.dsl.forethought.net  ==
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