[CentOS] Backups on external USB HDD

[Chris]

On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 06:43:54 -0500
Ugo Bellavance <ugob at lubik.ca> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> 	I'm trying to implement this:
> 
> I have:
> 
> - A windows 2000 server
> - A centos 4 server
> - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monthly.
> 
> The tape drive in the windows server died recently and I decided to 
> switch to USB external drives.  However, the USB controller in the 
> windows server is only 1.1, so it is very slow.
> 
> I didn't want to install a 2.0 USB controller in the windows server 
> since it is a brand-name and I didn't want to make it unstable, so I 
> decided to make the backups of the windows server (using Backup Exec)
> on the linux box.
> 
> So backup exec writes on the linux box via samba, directly on the USB 
> drive. (I thought of writing on the linux box FS directly, then 
> rsync'ing to the USB drive), but the space available on the local FS
> is about 90 gigs while the external USB drives are 250 gigs, meaning
> that I can keep like 4 weeks of data on the USB drives (using backup
> exec settings), while I could only keep 1 or 2 weeks otherwise.
> 
> My questions is:
> 
> -how can the USB drives be umounted/mounted automatically when the 
> person on site changes it (monday to tuesday, for example).  There
> will always be only one HDD conected at the time.
> 

I can't answer on the auto mounting however, consider this -
Run something like BackupPC on the Cent box. That in turn allows rsync
to fetch from the Windows Server without the extra overhead of samba
etc.

We use BackupPC to archive many Linux and Windows Servers using the
rsync method within BackupPC - I suggest BackupPC assuming you want a
nice graphical front-end.

-- 
Best regards,
Chris

I swear on tomorrow, if you take this chance, 
Our lives are this moment, the music - the dance.
And here in this labyrinth of lost mysteries, 
I close my eyes on this night and you're all that I see.