Backups

[corranrogue9]

What is there built into debian that I can use to backup my files? I can google into specifics, but I would like recommendations for good systems.

[oz]

Welcome to the forums!

You could look at Ghost 4 Linux, PartImage, or Clonezilla. I think there are Debian packages available for each, but not sure.

Let us know how it goes.

[corranrogue9]

I decided to go with PartImage simply because I've heard of it before. I can't seem to use it correctly though. I used apt-get install. It "works" ( e.g. it runs ) but I have to unmount my drive. I don't understand how I'm supposed to do that if it's the one running. Or is this supposed to be used for hard drives that don't contain the OS?

[cburwell]

What exactly do you need to bakup? For my personal servers (Development, and File servers) I just use a shell script with tar to backup the files and directories that I deem critical. Most of my files used by my other computers are saved of the RAID volume of my file server.

It may be crude, but it does the job in my situation.

[corranrogue9]

I'm looking to backup everything. I want it so that if something happens to my hard drive, I don't need to reinstall everything, but I also want to make sure that all of my personal files are intact as well.

[cburwell]

Understood. That's the down side of TAR, it doesn't scale so well, IMO.

PartImage seems to the a good option from what I have read, unfotunatley I do not have too much real world experience with it.

[corranrogue9]

I'm thinking something like partimage is what I want, but I would have to boot a different device, which I don't want to do. I would like to be able to schedule these backups. Quite ironically, my hard drive failed today shortly after I started this thread. I now have to reinstall everything.

[cburwell]

In that case you can try a bootable cd such as clonezilla. It may be able to clone the contents of the bad drive onto the new drive. If the old drive has a large amount of bad sectors this will just cause errors. It's worth a try though.

[corranrogue9]

Would a RAID setup work the same way on a Debian box as it would on a Windows box? I might end up just doing that.

[cburwell]

What do you mean when you say will it work the sam on Debian as on Windows?

I believe there is a bit of (tricky) work involved in using a RAID volumke as your system disc. However, my experience with RAID and Debian has only been with Software RAID volumes.

Cost may also be a factor as well. Software solutions would cost nothing, other then your time. With RAID, you usually have to purchase the disks (unless you have them laying around. The better the fault toleranceyou want, the more you will have to spend on drives.