On Sunday, 20 January 2019 7:24:33 AM AEDT Andrew Luke Nesbit via luv-main wrote:
On 08/01/2019 20:34, Russell Coker wrote:
On Wednesday, 9 January 2019 7:25:35 AM AEDT Andrew Luke Nesbit via luv-main>
Do you mind if I ask you what your backup regime is? I often ask people when the topic comes up because it's such an important thing. I'm always interested in potentially improving my knowledge and practice.
Firstly I use BTRFS or ZFS for everything that matters. The first stage of backup is filesystem snapshots, that covers the most common restore case of "oops I deleted the wrong file".
Thank you for explaining this to me/us. I have been thinking about what you wrote in the hope that the penny would drop, but no such luck so far...
Are you saying that the snapshot _itself_ is literally the first-stage backup?
Yes.
Next I rsync files to a disk with a BTRFS filesystem and use BTRFS snapshots on that for multiple backups (going back months or years as most files don't change much).
Are the files you rsync to the disk with Btrfs are the snapstop files you mentioned earlier? Or regular files in the "working portion" of the main disk/array/NAS?
The snapshot files. If you rsync from the files that are writable you risk getting inconsistent sets of files, EG a compiled executable with a version of the source that doesn't match and you also risk inconsistency internally to files (EG databases in use and filesystem images that are mounted or being used in VMs).
Some of those disks with backups are stored offsite.
How do you make this decision, and how is this implemented?
When I feel like it, or when I'm visiting a relative who has a safe to put them in. I don't have the type of answer you probably expected. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/