[ale] Backup strategies

[Greg Freemyer]

On 9/12/08, Pat Regan <thehead at patshead.com> wrote:
> Chris Kleeschulte wrote:
>  > I can't push 500GB offsite via the Internet, so what I am doing is
>  > gpg encrypting the backups and sending it to a usb disk and then
>  > shipping the backup drives offsite.
>  >
>
>
> Why not?  If you use software that transfers data using rsync or an
>  rsync-like protocol then the total amount of data only matters for the
>  first copy.  The bandwidth required for every other backup depends on
>  the amount of data that changed.
>
>  The nice thing about rsync is that it only transfers the parts of a file
>  that changed instead of entire files.
>
>  In a unix-only world I am a big fan of rdiff-backup.  It likely uses the
>  smallest amount of space to store previous differentials.
>
>  In my last job I used BackupPC to backup all our Windows and Linux
>  servers off site.  That was a much simpler use than the software was
>  designed for, though.  But it had a nice web interface for restores.  To
>  make it work well over the WAN I had to install rsync on the Windows
>  servers.
>
>  I ran the initial backup locally, then I hauled the backup server to the
>  remote site.
>
>  I'd never advocate backing up to disk as a replacement for tape, but it
>  is a pretty cheap way to get nearly instantaneous off-site backups.
>
>
>  Pat

rdiff-backup now supports windows boxes as well.  (I don't know the
details, but most of the recent rdiff-backup development activity is
around fixing details related to windows..)

Greg
-- 
Greg Freemyer
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