[plug] re: disk backup

[Denis Brown]

At 11:34 1/07/2003 +0800, Jon wrote:
>RHL has both pax and dump as well as AMANDA. I've seen flexbackup in
>action.  Wasn't too impressed with its restore facility though.  AMANDA
>has come to mind in a lot of discussion, have not seen or tested this
>one.  I believe it has a GUI front-end, which would be good to run from

 From a brief read of the doco, Amanda seems to be more a "management" 
engine than a "technology" per se.  IIRC it relies on whatever tools are 
installed in the target system and will manage the rotation of tapes, 
adding and deleting tapes from a backup set, etc, etc.   Not sure about GUI 
- I wasn't thinking in those terms when I browsed at the docs.   Anyone 
using or thinking of using Amanda?   If so I'd like to hear of experiences 
good/bad.

>my desktop system.  What I'm looking for is the ability to either mirror
>the disk (don't mind adding another drive to the server) or backup

If you have the option of adding another drive, any reason not to?  You 
might then go to another step:-  when it comes time for the backup, remove 
the extra disk from the RAID array and while it is "off line" so to speak, 
write it up to tape.   Once you're done, remount the disk in the RAID 
array, ready for next time.  If practical, this scheme is probably more 
suited to software RAID than hardware RAID; in fact may not be possible 
with a hardware RAID interface.   Comments?

>across LAN to a central backup server 3 x DDS4 DAT units.

Have a hunt through PLUG archives around the end of May.   Craig (Ringer) 
talked to the virtues of NBD (Network Block Device) in association with cp 
which may do the job for you.

HTH,
Denis