[CentOS] backup to disk

[Ned Slider]

Ray Leventhal wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm looking for common practices for backing up user data to disk.  My 
> user data is all in /home.  I'm also interested in what folks are doing 
> for things backing up os and configs.
> 
> Any pointers on setting up rsync, cpio, etc would be appreciated.  
> Pointers to good how-to's especially welcome.
> 
> Currently we're using Arkeia Network Backup (commercial product with 
> which I am in no way affiliated), and it's great, but with disk space so 
> cheap, I'd love to be able to take my current non-raid setup and find a 
> way to get up and running quickly in the case of some failures.
> 

In a mixed Linux/Windows environment, I deployed a Linux backup server 
and mounted users data directories on the backup server using smb/cifs 
and then did a "local" rsync of the mounted dirs to the backup dir (easy 
to run as a cron job each night). Further backups may then be written to 
removable storage for off site storage or additional disks in case of 
drive failure. I like rsync for backing up changing data sets such as 
users data.

To negate the risks/downtime associated with hard drive failure, I 
cloned the original OS setup using dd to spare HDs and locked them in 
the safe. Primary drive failure would require replacement of the drives 
(and a system update) and restoring data from the latest backups, 
although there's no reason one couldn't run 2 near identical backup 
servers side by side if the hardware is available.

There are simply so many different ways one could implement a backup 
strategy depending on hardware available, what software you're 
comfortable with, whether you want to script your own or use a backup 
package, the type of data you need to back up etc. The *important* thing 
is that you're comfortable with your backup procedure, it meets your 
needs, it's performed regularly, it's tested and it works.