Greetings,
I have started to rethink from scratch my backup procedures
and would like your suggestion on how to do what follows.
I want to write a script that makes total or incremental backups
(depending on a command line switch) of selected directories
of my computer on an external USB drive so that the drive
content looks like, for example:
20070809_complete (complete backup of all selected
files)
20070810_incr (hard links to save space to the
files in the last _complete folder
plus copies of all files on the
PC created or changed since previous
_backup)
20070812_incr same structure as 20070810_incr
etc...
(a complete backup would be 8+ GB of stuff)
I know, or can figure out by myself, how to put together the basis of this
with rsync. What I would like feedback on is about the best, that is
fastest and most reliable, Fedora-compatible ways to:
create something that is completely readable with any operating system
(including hidden files, links, long file names...): what if I need to
recover files from there from a friend's Mac or Windows laptop? This is
a filesystem question, so how would I format/ (re) create it?
check periodically, as quickly as possible, that everything is still
intact, that is that no single files or links etc... have been damaged.
Ideally, I'd make this last thing an option of the script itself, that is
"check the drive first, and if everything is fine proceed with the
new backup operation"
after putting together and testing all this, I'll probably start looking
for the most efficient (and portable, in the sense specified above) way to
crypt everything, but this is another project.
Scripts, tips, links, general comments, etc... are very welcome. Of
course, I can post the final result here when I'm done, if anybody is
interested.
Now a couple of OT question, answers to these are much better sent off list.
1) What about reliability of hard disk versus DVD based backups?
Links to relevant reading are welcome.
2) Any positive or negative feedback about Lacie external USB 2.0 drives?
(the store at the corner has an offer on the 300968E model...)
Thank you in advance for any feedback,
Marco
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