[ILUG] 100GB+ backups for the home user

[AJ McKee]

Hi Paul,

I remember having a similar problem that I was looking into solving. While
looking for solutions I came across the idea of p2p backups. Now the info at
the time was quite achedemic, but there was a client up and running. Alas
because of a change of jobs etc, I don't have my bookmarks, but a wee google
has turned up the following;

http://www.312inc.com/3_sol_prod_LOM.html
http://www.hispread.com/index2.html

One is platform independent one may not and they all seem to require payment
so they are not GPL'd. However then that would mean that there may be scope
for linux groups to get together and build a p2p backup network, even if it
were only for the lug websites globally.

Personally I am unsure about p2p backup, I don't think anyone would like
their data being distruibited among 100 or so nodes for example. But that
being said I do like the idea of all the lugs backing each other up. But
then again there are political, motivational and practical problems
associated with that idea so I'll discretly bury it.

One other possible area to look at is trickle backups. I don't know about
linux agents but I know that Veritas have their "Desktop & Laptop Agent"
which basically does a block level backup to a remote "Media" server and
from there onto tape. Again the lack of linux applications is interesting,
but could be done.

But then again I am sure rsync is just as good.

My 2c worth.

AJ