[CentOS] Best way to backup virtual machines from Citrix XenServer.

On Mon, Feb 08, 2010 at 12:07:30PM -0800, nate wrote:
> Simon Billis wrote:
> 
> > Good quality storage (which usually comes at a price) will provide the
> > functionality that is needed to backup the VM's either as a complete VM
> > image or files from the VM filesystem. Entry level storage from suppliers
> > such as Equallogic/Dell comes with this functionality and it is possible to
> > have the storage up and attached to servers within 10 mins from un-boxing it
> > (but do allow a little longer to understand it ;-) .)
> 
> Suggest reading this interesting piece "3 years of equallogic" before
> thinking about using it's snapshot stuff -
> 
> http://www.tuxyturvy.com/blog/index.php?/archives/61-Three-Years-of-Equallogic.html
> 
> Of course not all snapshot solutions are created equal, equallogic's
> appears to be especially poor in this regard.
> 

I think that blog post gives too negative view of the EQL snapshots. 
They work very well for many use cases. Having a lot of random small writes
all over the volume seems to cause a lot of wasted disk space though.

-- Pasi