[lug] Automated USB Drive Backup

[Lee Woodworth]

karl horlen wrote:
>> I use a system somewhat like you are describing: 1
>> offsite
>> usb disk, one local usb for backup. Each with a full
>> copy
>> of selected file systems.
>>
>> You may find this kind of command useful:
>>
>> rsync -v --archive --stats --delete --backup
>>
>>
> --backup-dir=/backup/history/fileserv/20071026/photo1
>>  /photo1/ /backup/fileserv/photo1/
>>
>> By keeping per-day backup trees you get poor-mans
>> versioning
>> of file changes (only one version per day). For our
>> systems
>> we see from 12M to 2,000M deltas (big ones when a
>> photo card
>> is uploaded).
> 
> So your deltas are not really deltas.  They are
> actually mirroring the entire tree every backup cycle?

They are deltas. The total partitions examined are about 100G.

> 
>> My little backup system generates the rsync commands
>> as well as creating the history dirs for each date;
>> and
>> removing history days over 30 days old. Runs once a
>> night
>> at approx 3:00AM with no manual intervention. Don't
>> have
>> to fiddle with mount/unmount events as the
>> usb-connected
>> backup disk is always plugged in. I do the offsite/
>> connected drive swap during the day and don't worry
>> about auto-handling drive mount/unmount.
> 
> A late night or early morning job is exactly where I'm
> heading with the scripts because it simplifies the
> entire process.  I still would like know how to do the
> "hotplug" automount unmount capability because it
> would be pretty cool which is why I asked.
 It may be cool, but potentially complex. What happens
when you plug in a usb drive that isn't one of your backups?
If both back ups are plugged in at the same time? If ...