28 Sep
2024
28 Sep
'24
6:53 p.m.
On 9/28/24 9:18 AM, Dr. Nikolaus Klepp via tde-users wrote:
I intend to oject: filesystem based backup systems do
not have the risk
of saving a corrupt filesystems as blockbased backup systems have when
done on a mountd filesystem. The filesystem (as long as it is sane) is
always in a cosistent state, while the blockdevice (as long as mounted)
is not. That's why no sane person uses dump/restore anymore.
As long as you do not run "apt dist-upgrade" at the same time as you
rsync you are fine (in respect of bootable backup). Nothing changes
kernel + grub + modules + /bin ... under normal conditions so your copy
will be able to boot - that is if your got UUID and GRUB/EFI stuff right
in the first place. What gets busted are logfiles, open datanbases,
files that are just been written. So if you use some brain cells you can
shut down whatever is not essential, close your kmail + editors + firefox
and just make the sync. Snapshots (ZFS) would be better, but you take
what you get :)
You're probably right; I've never backed up a running boot partition with
rsync. But if I were going to depend on it, I'd want to test it a time or
two first.
On 9/28/24 9:51 AM, dep via tde-users wrote:
The purpose, besides the obvious, is to keep the
second drive updated as
to security and other updates and any additional software I might
install. If there were a way to do the usual update-upgrade to a
non-booted drive, and to install applications to the second drive, that
would be fine.
Is it really necessary to backup after every single change? Should you ever
need to use the backup, updates and other software can always be quickly &
easily reinstalled. User configuration settings will still be in /home,
since it's on a separate partition. So maybe a few backups a year would be
sufficient.
A RAID 1 seemed a good idea, but I believe that this
cannot be added to
a drive after the fact -- both must be blank to start with. And I think
the speed would then be determined, at least to some extent, by the
slower drive.
I know very little about RAID, but would it be possible to backup the
existing drive, make the RAID 1, then restore the backup to it? Or would
that not work for some reason?
re: speed, is it possible to make the RAID default to the faster drive, then
update the slower drive in the background? Or maybe it does that anyway?
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