[ILUG] USB hard drive medium

[Donncha O Caoimh]

I'd suggest using BackupPC[1] on to a RAID partition, and occasionally 
make a backup to DVD if you want to save pennies. BackupPC has 
documented how to create an "archive CD" target where you can dump a 
snapshot of the current backups.
I have an external USB drive (bought to dump photos onto) and it's very 
slow writing to it.[2]

[1] 
http://blogs.linux.ie/xeer/2004/06/02/easy-automated-snapshot-style-backups-with-rsync/
[2] http://blogs.linux.ie/xeer/2005/05/19/wolverine-sixpac-and-linux/

Donncha.

James McCarthy wrote:
> gbackup?
> well i thought dd would be the fastes since it simply dumps the whole disk.
> i'd imagine that the machine would be under a constant io load so i
> thought this migh perform the best.
> my hearts not set on dd
> 
> On 02/06/05, Niall O Broin <niall at linux.ie> wrote:
> 
>>On 2 Jun 2005, at 15:51, James McCarthy wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Im considering buying external USB hard drives for  my backup medium,
>>>is there any flaw to this medium when compared to tapes, and does the
>>>program used to back up(dd) handle well when the file system is in
>>>use?
>>
>>Disks are much more fragile than tapes, and using multiple tapes is
>>rather more convenient than using multiple disks.
>>
>>But what in God's name are you using dd for? It's OK for duping an
>>entire disk, and for various other things, but of the whole panoply of
>>Linux tools which can move bits from A to B and hence can be perverted
>>into some kind backup tool, dd must be about the worst. Read up on
>>Linux backup a little, there are much better options (apart from not
>>backing up at all, there can hardly be many worse).
>>
>>Personally, I'd recommend waiting for gbackup to be announced.
>>
>>Niall
>>
>>--
>>Irish Linux Users' Group
>>http://www.linux.ie/mailman/listinfo/ilug/
>>
>>