Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 16:38:32 +0200 From: Helge Preuss <helge.preuss@gmail.com> To: Nick Barnes <Nick.Barnes@pobox.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: better disk reliability on a desktop machine Message-ID: <42D7CA68.10707@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <38171.1121430073@thrush.ravenbrook.com> References: <38171.1121430073@thrush.ravenbrook.com>
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[...] >So I'm thinking I probably want to move to a RAID mirror filesystem, >and keep some sort of quality backups offsite. > >1. RAID mirror filesystem questions: > >1a: should this be vinum? I have read and can follow the handbook > instructions for a vinum root filesystem. > >1b: Will it help to upgrade to 5.x, to get this to go smoothly? > >2. taking backups offsite. Seems to me that the best route is a > number of external firewire hard disks. This machine doesn't have > motherboard firewire, so I'll need to get a PCI firewire board. > >2a: Recommendations for an affordable PCI firewire board? > >2b: Should I upgrade to 5.x for the better firewire hardware support? > > If you have to reinstall anyway, why not upgrade to 5 in any case, while you're at it. Just an overall opinion unrelated to your technical questions. And yes, at least for firewire, I'm quite positive that 5 has far better support. >3c: Opinions on using firewire hard disks for this at all? Would I be > better off writing DVDs? > >3. making backups. > >3a: I'm used to dump/restore, but it seems to me that rsync might be a > better tool for this, as it would allow me to mount and browse the > backup. Opinions? > > I used rsync for a while, and given your question, I would advocate for it. Recently I discovered a backup solution that suits me much better: subversion. Granted, backups are not what it was originally written for, but I was intrigued by the ides of using a version control system for backups, as I can easily back up and restore every change I make. I have the subversion repository on an external HDD, and commit the changes every couple of hours per cronjob, or manually if I make important changes. The repository is backed up on DVD regularly. Pros: Performs much better than rsync, and is more flexible, IMO. And of course the possibility of using version control on all your files. Cons: it was not trivial to set up, and if you have not set up a version control system before, it can cause severe head-scratching (you have been warned). Also, it uses twice as much space on the local disk as before. I don't use the version control on my Multimedia collection, but this changes slowly anyway and thus an occasional backup on DVD is alright with me.
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