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Re: [OCLUG-Tech] Back-up strategy for home linux systems


On Mar 1, 2007, at 10:05 AM, Stephen Gregory wrote:


On 27-Feb-07, at 8:20 , miden wrote:

I've never understood the apparent resistance to a simple
imaging/recovery process in the Linux world.

The problem is that there is nothing simple about hard drive images. The people who produce ghost have built an entire industry around making hard drive images. Ghost is one of the best tools, but it still fails[1].

The other problem with drive images is that you can't build a drive image on a live system. You need to reboot. *nix users have traditionally preferred a more practically backup solution.


[1] Most often after a ghost restore you need reinstall grub or lilo. Even when you use the magic -ib option. Last I checked Ghost only supports the ext2/ext3 filesystem. But if you use ext3 you need to use tune2fs to recreate the journal. If you use something other then ext2/ext3 ghost creates a raw block for block image.


Hard drives are cheap - why not just install a second hard drive and mirror them. It's not a complete backup solution by any means but it will protect against hardware failure and allow you to keep working with minimal disruption. If you use an external drive for your mirror, you can even swap it out with a third drive periodically...

Fred