Les, thanks for the On Thu, August 9, 2007 3:12 pm, Les Mikesell wrote: > M. Fioretti wrote: >> 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... > > Personally, I like backuppc running over the network from some other > machine to do this grunge work automatically, but if you only have one > machine I'd looke at rdiff-backup. > >> (a complete backup would be 8+ GB of stuff) > > These days you can get USB drives based on laptop hard drives that go up > to 250 gigs and don't need external power. > >> 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? > > With backuppc this happens automatically because you can access it > through a web interface to browse and download files - but you need > network access to the server. With portable drives it will be hard to > both maintain all attributes and be able to read it on anything. > FAT-formatted USB drives are the only thing that will work across > linux/windows/mac and like CD/DVD filesystems, it won't maintain all the > attributes unless you write tar archives that will make it harder to > access and keep rsync from working. >> >> check periodically, as quickly as possible, that everything is still >> intact, that is that no single files or links etc... have been damaged. > > Rsync will do this, if the disk format lets you use it. > >> >> 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. > > Keep several copies, regardless. Maybe your best solution is to use an > ext3 USB drive as the main backup, preserving attributes and do separate > DVDs or VFAT disks for the files you might want to use elsewhere. Or if > you have internet access to a remote machine, rsync over ssh works > nicely, with or without backuppc driving it. > > >> 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...) > > The worst thing about portable drives is the power connector for the > ones that need external power. If you plan to move it around, I'd > recommend one of the new laptop-drive based versions that run off USB > power, or a flash based version if you only need 8 gigs. > > -- > Les Mikesell > lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx > > -- just testing for now
