[lug] Backup comparison: rdiff-backup and rsync snapshots

[Bear Giles]

Sean Reifschneider wrote:
> that.  Sure, the 2GB database files that have some regular changes hurt a
> bit, but rotating old backups off saves the day.

Aren't file-based backups of a live database a Really Bad Idea?   I 
thought the proper procedure was a database dump.

I know, you can't do that with large databases containing terabytes of 
data.  But those databases are probably replicated.

My systems perform a nightly pg_dumpall.  If we lose the database I'll 
restore it from that file instead of the /var/lib/postgres backups.

(Hopefully the backups aren't happening at the same time that file is 
being written.  Hmmm, I should look into that, e.g., perhaps use a 
rotating file.)

> Well, hardlinks are pretty cheap as far as a filesystem goes.  It's just
> one more inode...

I thought you couldn't hardlink a directory.

Bear