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Re: Recommendation: Backup system



On Sat, Oct 01, 2016 at 11:37:31AM +0200, mo wrote:
> Make a long story short:
> Have you guys a recommendation for me?
> Is there a specific application you use for your backups guys?

rdiff-backup[1]. I don't know what your NAS is, whether it's an off-the-shelf
thing or a DIY system, but I tend to initiate the backups on my NAS (which is
a Debian-powered mini itx PC). You can initiate from the clients instead if
you prefer.

rdiff-backup is, conceptually, quite similar to the level of detail you are
working at with your script, so it should be easy to get working. I'd also
consider looking at Obnam[2], and I'd avoid rsnapshot if I were you (it
falls over with large quantities of files, such as mailboxes, and rdiff-backup
basically does the same job but better).

rsync, whilst an awesome piece of software, is not, on its own, a backup
system.

When evaluating or building a backup system, consider all of the points in
"The Tao of Backup"[3]. Finally, remember that RAID is not backup[4]. (JWZ's
advice about a 3rd backup disk here is particularly good. I presently use
rsync for my 3rd backup drive.)

Penultimately, I'll echo what another poster has said, backuppc[5] is very good,
especially if you have windows clients (I realise you don't), although the
backend storage (last time I looked) was a somewhat awkward format that I
think would be painful to extract stuff from in an emergency situation should
the BackupPC software itself fail. As for Bacula, I *think* it's more geared
towards an enterprise-level, perhaps using tape backups, like Amanda. I know
you can use Bacula w/o tapes (Amanda too) but that's kind-of where it came
from and it still "feels" like a tape-oriented system to me (others are welcome
to jump to Bacula's defence here)

Finally, and although Tao of Backup covers this I'll repeat it: test restores.
Test how easy restores are for any tool of choice. Restores, restore performance
and restore UI is infinitely more important than the backup process.

[1] http://rdiff-backup.nongnu.org
[2] http://obnam.org/
[3] http://www.taobackup.com
[4] https://www.jwz.org/doc/backups.html
[5] http://backuppc.sourceforge.net


-- 
Jonathan Dowland
Please do not CC me, I am subscribed to the list.

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