John R. McPherson wrote:

If you don't have a LAN, write stuff to CDs.

If you're going to take this option, make sure you get good CDs, or back up often. I have a few CDs which are not even 5 years old and can no longer be read. They have been kept in their cases in my drawer virtually their entire lives, have not been abused in any way, but will mount with only two files on them called "???????? ????". Fortunately they weren't important, because I back up more frequently than once every couple of years :) I'd also like to ask the LUG about pendrives. I back up primarily to a 1 GB Legend USB pendrive, which is convenient for obvious reasons. Does anyone have any horror stories about pendrives dying? I also back up to a laptop on my network (maybe I'm a bit paranoid), but I like being able to take my backup with me wherever I go. You know, in case I come home and find the house on fire... Regards, Bnonn

I'd also like to ask the LUG about pendrives. I back up primarily to a 1 GB Legend USB pendrive, which is convenient for obvious reasons. Does anyone have any horror stories about pendrives dying? I also back up to a laptop on my network (maybe I'm a bit paranoid), but I like being able to take my backup with me wherever I go. You know, in case I come home and find the house on fire...

Principle thing I've heard about pen drives is the data getting corrupted but this is at the time of writing to them not later so as long as you check the data is OK it should be fine - I recommend removing and then testing on another computer for critical data.

This primarily happens if you don't cleanly unmount the volume. Never unplug a USB mass storage device from a machine if you have just written to it, unless you unmount it cleanly (by running 'unmount /path/to/mountpoint' in a shell, right clicking on it and pressing 'eject' in nautilus or similar, or using Windows' unmount removable device option).

Yes I agree. I have had corruption once though even when I did do this... but I should have said you should always unmount also. Ian

A workmate told me about a tool today called rdiff-backup (part of Fedora Extras) that uses the rsync protocol to do differential backups. Sounds cool. I'm going to do a little experimentation. Basically so I can do backups of my remote server over my DSL link (and reverse, backup my important local files to my remote server). Regards Drew Broadley wrote:

John R. McPherson wrote:

...

Actually getting around to writing a quick backup script also helps you think about which data on your computer is worth keeping "forever". For me it turned out that the only really critical stuff I'd want to keep is my digital photos. The /etc directory is useful too, although I could recreate similar config files myself. I wouldn't be able to recreate my photos.

For reference (hopefully someone can use it for that purpose) here is my rsync backup script:

---------------------- #!/bin/sh

export RSYNC='/usr/local/bin/rsync -a -z -u -v -4 --delete-after'

# Back up currently installed packages information (FreeBSD) # If I need to rebuild the box, I like to know what was on it :) /usr/sbin/pkg_info > /etc/pkg_info

# Back up WWW Data ${RSYNC} /www/usr/* /rsync/www

# Back up MAIL Data ${RSYNC} /home/vpopmail/* /rsync/mail

# Back up rsync realted scripts, because I hate having to recreate them! ${RSYNC} /root/bin/* /rsync/bin

# Back up SubVersioN Data ${RSYNC} /pub/svn/* /rsync/svn

# Back up configuration files ${RSYNC} /etc/* /rsync/etc ${RSYNC} /usr/local/etc/* /rsync/usr.local.etc

<<EOF

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