[Digikam-users] Re: rsnapshot (was Re: Back-ups on CD/DVD with DAR)

[Thorsten Schnebeck]

Am Mittwoch 23 Februar 2011, um 19:58:41 schrieb Peter Shute:
> It depends how much data you have. Backing up to more than one disk, let
> alone dozens, is very tedious.
> 
> If you have a lot, it's probably suitable for incremental backups, but
> finding files on incremental backups is even more tedious, as you have to
> search them all.
> 
> As someone mentioned, 2TB external drives are getting very cheap now.
> That's the equivalent of hundreds of DVDs.
>
> I use an external disk, keeping multiple backups on it. I ought to get a
> second one to rotate. I also make prints occasionally, but only of the
> very best.
> 

I also prefer a fast local backup. I use a separate backup server that offers a large NFS network directory for each client.
The server stores all client data on a (linux-soft)mirror-RAID, so every file exists three times. (One on the client and two on the server.)
I use rsnapshot ( http://rsnapshot.org/ ) for an incremental backup based on hardlinks.
Everyday I make a backup (triggered by anacron) , rsnapshot creates hardlinks for every file that have not changed.  The changed files will be rsynced.
That way I have fast compact differential backup but the complete file structure.
Backups get rotated and I leave
1 of a day
7 of a week
4 of a month
12 of a year

These 24 backups fulfil all my needs.

Every client has a permanent bind mounted read-only access to the backup directory. 

So every user can easily restore. Here the original dir:

 ls -l /home/schnebeck/Bilder/

-rw-r--r--  1 schnebeck schnebeck    15177 2009-08-29 02:16 06-05.pto
-rw-r--r--  1 schnebeck schnebeck    24833 2009-08-29 02:16 06-05.pto.mk
drwxr-xr-x  2 schnebeck schnebeck     4096 2009-01-25 18:28 C702
-rw-r--r--  1 schnebeck schnebeck 14310400 2011-02-02 23:41 digikam4.db
drwxr-xr-x 85 schnebeck schnebeck     4096 2011-01-29 15:46 EOS
drwxr-xr-x  3 schnebeck schnebeck     4096 2010-05-27 20:56 Import
drwxr-xr-x 12 schnebeck schnebeck     4096 2006-10-16 03:36 IXUS
drwxr-xr-x  3 schnebeck schnebeck     4096 2010-05-20 19:42 Nokia N900
drwxr-xr-x  2 schnebeck schnebeck     4096 2010-09-25 13:03 S95
-rw-r--r--  1 schnebeck schnebeck 62966784 2011-02-02 23:41 thumbnails-digikam.db

Here the read-only restore dir:

ls /restore/

daily.0  daily.1  daily.2  daily.3  daily.4  daily.5  daily.6  monthly.0  monthly.1  monthly.2  monthly.3  monthly.4  monthly.5  weekly.0  weekly.1  weekly.2  weekly.3

ls -l /restore/monthly.5/home/schnebeck/Bilder/

-rw-r--r-- 17 schnebeck schnebeck    15177 2009-08-29 02:16 06-05.pto
-rw-r--r-- 17 schnebeck schnebeck    24833 2009-08-29 02:16 06-05.pto.mk
drwxr-xr-x  2 schnebeck schnebeck     4096 2009-01-25 18:28 C702
-rw-r--r--  1 schnebeck schnebeck 10167296 2010-07-10 00:21 digikam4.db
drwxr-xr-x 81 schnebeck schnebeck     4096 2010-07-09 23:43 EOS
drwxr-xr-x  3 schnebeck schnebeck     4096 2010-05-27 20:56 Import
drwxr-xr-x 12 schnebeck schnebeck     4096 2006-10-16 03:36 IXUS
drwxr-xr-x  3 schnebeck schnebeck     4096 2010-05-20 19:42 Nokia N900
-rw-r--r--  1 schnebeck schnebeck 23864320 2010-07-10 00:21 thumbnails-digikam.db

(Ha! Meanwhile I bought another cam :-)

You see, its quite the same pathname on the server and easy to find.
It would be nice to write a dolphin plugin that aggregates all possible restore path of a file and shows these as a special restore file property.
GSoC anyone? ;-)

I can only recommend such a separate NAS Backup Server. Oh, I forgot something: for me every harddisk has a best before date. After 3.5 years every disk will be replaced without question. I note this 
date on the disk and in my electronic calendar. Of course, the server will sent mails if there are S.M.A.R.T. or RAID errors.

HTH

  Thorsten