Backup Red Hat Enterprise 5 from RAID 5

[leblinux]

Dears,

I have a failed SCSI HDD today and I don't have any backup yet. The server is Red Hat Enterprise 5 configured as Hardware RAID 5. Its now running on the other SCSI HARD DISK. I wonder is there any way (software) to make a full backup of my Red Hat with its applications and configuration to an external USB before my the other HDD fails? any suggestions? Looking forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

[Irithori]

As a very basic adhoc option:
rsync


But a production server should already have a backupsystem in place, like amanda/bacula/etc.

[leblinux]

Thanks for your quick reply, so basically your saying any tool/software can Backup RAID 5 - RHEL5. I was going to use CloneZilla, to backup to an Image. I hope it works.

And if it worked as an Image will it output multiple images or 1 Image? since its a Raid 5?

[Irithori]

An image might be an option, but please be aware
- At restore time: your destination device needs to be at least as big as the raid5 now
- afaik, Clonezilla cannot do incrementals. So each run will take quite a lot of time.

You will get one image, probably broken into multiple pieces if you choose to do so.
For partimage/clonezilla/dd/etc it doesnt matter if it is a raid5.
As the hardware raidcontroller presents it as just one blockdevice to the OS.

[leblinux]

Thank you so much for clearing it out I appreciate your time. If you suggest me of a software other than clonezilla that throws an image on the external hard disk what would you suggest?

And suppose I went with clonezilla backing up as an image, during restore time do I have to have the same exact hard disk size + raid 5 configuration to be able to restore OR More new hard disk sizes + raid 5?

Thanks again!

[Irithori]

If I want to make an image (which is seldom) I use partimage.
I dont have hands-on experience with clonezilla, but from what I read it surely is an option, too.

As I said, the destination device needs to be equal or bigger than source image.
Also, as I said : It doesnt matter how many disks or what raidlevel you choose for the destination device, as the raidcontroller will present a single block device (per raid) anyway.

[Irithori]

Out of curiosity:
What are your reasons to choose an image in that situation?
An rsync of the mounted filesystem to that usb drive should be good enough.
Also, it will handle incrementals (kind of).
You have access to all the files w/o problems (intead of the need to restore an image first)

[leblinux]

Never used rsync before. And I use CloneZilla to backup to image I will readabout rsync and how to backup thanks man I appreciate!