Re: Backups - was: Re: LVM

[Camaleón <noelamac@gmail.com>]

El 2010-06-15 a las 22:58 +0100, Lisi escribió:

(resending to the list)

> On Tuesday 15 June 2010 19:44:33 Camaleón wrote:
> > But it's "her" backup and "her" data. She should care about how to do
> > things like these, whatever place she is (home, university, work...).
> 
> I was forgetting that "school" means different things in American and British 
> English.  We are talking about a young teenager, who is currently more 
> interested in fashion than the internal workings of a computer, especially 
> after some dire "IT" lessons at school (=institution for children). 

Okay, sorry for misunderstanding :-)

I thought we were just taking/focusing about backup strategies and not 
about other limitations derived by the type of user.
 
> She _was_ interested in the workings of computers, and she will I am sure be 
> so again.  For now her expressed attitude is: "When I am at school the IT 
> department does it (my note - but very limitedly), when I am at home with 
> you, you do it, and when I am in Japan Daddy does it.  Why do I need to do 
> it?"

Now I see. Then you should definitely care about her backup. She is so 
young for taking these things by "motu-propio" (by her own), unless she 
is a power techie girl :-)
 
> But she will do it for herself the first time she wants it done and neither I 
> nor her father is available.  I have found that a good general ploy is "Of 
> course I'll come and help you do it.  Just let me finish what I am doing at 
> the moment."

Mmmm, then you could split the backup strategy in two separate tasks:

Task 1/ Personal data backup can be triggered by the lady (by means of a
simple script in the desktop). That way you are teaching her about good 
managing of the computer and to be responsible. This can be run once a 
week. If you know beforehand the computer is "on" on specific hours, it 
can be also automated.

Task 2/ Full backup (disk image). This is a very slow task that 
requires time and plenty of free space so you can make a snapshot of the 
disk on a monthly basis (or two times in a month).
 
> But _I_ want a backup of her hard drive because I would have to sort out the 
> mess if the hard drive were to die. :-(

Yes, it's a valid point. And Clonezilla does a good job here (full disk 
imaging or partition imaging), although other people use rsync. But I'm
afraid you'll need more than DVD discs to get this done flawlessly 
(external USB hard disk or small NAS would be better) :-)

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón