[lug] Automated USB Drive Backup

[karl horlen]

> The other problem is that automated backups are
> almost always local.  
> They're good for recovering an accidently deleted
> file, but worthless in 
> case of fire, flood or insurrection.  There's a lot
> to be said for a 
> manual process where you take your (encrypted?)
> backup to your office 
> weekly.

I'm designing this so that I rotate 2 USB drives in
and out every week.  One of those is always kept
offsite.  This guarantees max loss of data at one week
in the case of a fire or other local catastrophe.

I know that I could rsync this offsite over the net
and easily be done with this.  But I have my reasons
for wanting to do it via USB drive and the need to
automate it as much as possible.

> Related note: here's a deep question for you -- what
> actually needs to 
> be backed up?  Probably nothing (or nearly nothing)

A Lot more than a CD or DVD. Read on.

> It would be easy to say "all of /home", but how much
> of that is static 
> or easily regenerated?  You don't need your mp3
> files in every backup.

This is intended as a full data offsite backup as
described above where i rotate the drives out on a
weekly basis.

I don't want the hastle of incremental backup sets.  I
just want a mirror of certain directories to make
restores and backups easier.

Because it's an rsync backup, it will take time for
the backup to traverse each file but the overall
backup copies will be limited to only those files that
change.

I also know that an rsync backup won't allow for
recovery of deleted files.  Or at least in most cases
and depending on how I fire off the command.  That's a
limitation I'm willing to live with.



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