[ubuntu-uk] Using rsync (or something) to remotely backup a windows drive

[Tony Travis]

doug livesey wrote:
> [...]
> I'd really appreciate any advice that folks could give me on this -- am 
> I wrong in my ideas? would this even work? are there any hideous 
> pitfalls awaiting me? is there a better way to do it? etc.

Hello, Doug.

I manage a network of 31 Ubuntu-based bioinformatics servers in Europe, 
and I use rsync to replicate local backups remotely for critical 
machines. You need to bear in mind several things, not least of which is 
the network bandwidth that is actually available to you.

There are also some limitations to rsync that you should be aware of. In 
particular, by default rsync doesn't remove the existing old file on the 
remote end until the transfer completes successfully. Not a problem if 
you have lots of disk space on your remote backup server, but it's a BIG 
problem if you don't because the rsync's never succeed :-(

Another problem that I've encountered is that rsync can be very slow 
updating BIG files. This is because it has to calculate checksums for 
all the blocks in both files before deciding which block to transfer. 
What I've done in this situation (space tight on the remote server and 
BIG files being rsync'ed) is to use the rsync --inplace option.

Bye,

	Tony.
-- 
Dr. A.J.Travis, University of Aberdeen, Rowett Institute of Nutrition
and Health, Greenburn Road, Bucksburn, Aberdeen AB21 9SB, Scotland, UK
tel +44(0)1224 712751, fax +44(0)1224 716687, http://www.rowett.ac.uk
mailto:a.travis at abdn.ac.uk, http://bioinformatics.rri.sari.ac.uk/~ajt