On Tue, Apr 23, 2002 at 05:43:31PM -0700, Ross Boylan wrote: > I'm trying to do a fairly comprehensive system backup to CD-R. The > amount I have to backup is much larger than the free space on the > system, which in turn is larger than a CD-R. > > This means I'm interested in compression and streaming solutions. > > I just tried afio -o -Z piped to cdbackup, but this gave me an error > after a bit. I assume this was because cdbackup ran out of things to > write while afio was busy compressing (see error below). > > I see afio's examples sketch out using blocking and cdrecord directly, > but I have a feeling I may run into the same issue. > > Is there a way around this, for example setting up some kind of > buffered pipe so I don't run out of input? > > I was tarring up little chuncks and writing them to CD, but my chunks > got too big and this got tedious. Sounds like the same thing I'm playing with. Buffering is essential here, as compression does slow things down a bit. Things to look into: - apt-cache show buffer - apt-cache show bfr - If you find a buffer/bfr-style program that uses *disk* buffers, please let me know! - Write cd's at a slower speed. I run my backups overnight, so single-speed is quite adequate; I can't change the CD until the morning anyway. - Look into the -T option on afio. Not compressing small files saves a lot of invocations of gzip, and doesn't affect the size of the backup significantly. - Look into the -E option on afio. You don't want it to compress your *.mp3's or *.ogg's. - If you have large files around that change very rarely or don't need to be backed up (e.g. CD images, disk images etc) study the -2 option on afio. > Also, though I've always used tar, I understand it's a very fragile > backup scheme and that afio (or maybe cpio--couldn't quite tell) is > safer for archiving. Any comments? I chose afio because it will *not* go recursive, whereas tar will. Besides, it gives me better control over compression. > Final question, about what to back up. Karsten Self's nice page > (first reference) says some parts of /var are good to backup. Which > ones? Also, I have a nagging feeling that some of /lib or /usr/lib > has some customizations (vague memories of editing or adding files > there, maybe for browser add-ons...). If in doubt, back it up. You can't have too many backups. I'm working on a more selective scheme; results in the next few weeks. HTH -- Karl E. Jørgensen karl@jorgensen.com www.karl.jorgensen.com ==== Today's fortune: It's hard to think of you as the end result of millions of years of evolution.
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