[rsnapshot-discuss] archive backups to tape

[Terry Barnum]

This might be a stupid question: I'd like to archive my rsnapshot backups to LTO but since I don't think tape (LTFS) supports hardlinks I'm wondering if there's a good way to do this.

I ran rsnapshot du on one of my smaller rsnapshot roots and daily, weekly and monthly total ~335GB. I'm currently running rsnapshot du on two more snapshot roots on another machine that I think will each be in the 1TB range.

Am I correct in thinking that upon output, the hardlink structure is "flattened" and I'll end up with massive data inflation on tape?

Thanks,
-Terry

Terry Barnum
digital OutPost
Carlsbad, CA

http://www.dop.com
800/464-6434

[Terry Barnum]

Post by Terry Barnum
This might be a stupid question: I'd like to archive my rsnapshot backups to LTO but since I don't think tape (LTFS) supports hardlinks I'm wondering if there's a good way to do this.
I ran rsnapshot du on one of my smaller rsnapshot roots and daily, weekly and monthly total ~335GB. I'm currently running rsnapshot du on two more snapshot roots on another machine that I think will each be in the 1TB range.
Am I correct in thinking that upon output, the hardlink structure is "flattened" and I'll end up with massive data inflation on tape?

Although tape is inexpensive, I changed my mind and purchased a 4TB enterprise drive for $189 and am archiving onto that.

# rsync -axHSX SOURCEDIR/. TARGETDIR

It appears to be working.

-Terry

Terry Barnum
digital OutPost
Carlsbad, CA

http://www.dop.com
800/464-6434

[Nico Kadel-Garcia]

Post by Terry Barnum

Post by Terry Barnum
This might be a stupid question: I'd like to archive my rsnapshot backups to LTO but since I don't think tape (LTFS) supports hardlinks I'm wondering if there's a good way to do this.
I ran rsnapshot du on one of my smaller rsnapshot roots and daily, weekly and monthly total ~335GB. I'm currently running rsnapshot du on two more snapshot roots on another machine that I think will each be in the 1TB range.
Am I correct in thinking that upon output, the hardlink structure is "flattened" and I'll end up with massive data inflation on tape?

Although tape is inexpensive, I changed my mind and purchased a 4TB enterprise drive for $189 and am archiving onto that.
# rsync -axHSX SOURCEDIR/. TARGETDIR
It appears to be working.

Until it doesn't, because you typoed a command and did a "rsync -a
--delete" to the wrong target directory. Once had someone doing that
sort of backupt from "$SRCDIR/ to $TARGETDIR/" forget to set
$TARGETDIR, and it started rsycing to "/". With "--delete" turned on.
And petabytes of business data statically mounted via NFS. And because
they were an "architect", they had default write access to all the
data with their user account.

We'd been paranoid, and intelligent. filesystem snapshots had been
very expensive to implement, but that was not the first time they'd
saved our butts from userland mistakes. It's part of why it's really
useful to have *two* physical backup technologies, one of which is
normally not writable. An air gap from the rest of the network can be
even better for critical, valuable data, but that's another step.