My all time fav for file level backups is BackupPC. De-duplicates files in the compressed pool.
Glenn On September 19, 2023 12:18:36 p.m. ADT, gene heskett <ghesk...@shentel.net> wrote: >On 9/19/23 08:59, Stefan Monnier wrote: >>> Compared to the setup required for amanda, that sounds very inviting. Amanda >>> has a very steep learning curve just because it is so versatile I'm still >>> waiting on stuff, so no more actual progress. >> >> I used Amanda many years ago and was quite pleased with it, but I must >> say I'm having a hard time imagining it in my current world where tapes >> don't make much sense for backups. >> >Thats where vtapes come in, A vtape is nothing more than a directory on the >backup medium, which for me was a BIG hard drive with in my case, 60 suddirs, >used as tapes. Each contained individual files identified as to backup level >which was a way ti differentiate a full copy, or what had ben changed since >the last full, or what had been changed since the last level 1, wash rinse >repeat for ever deeper levels. And with or w/o compression. Executables >generally aren't worth the time to compress. Ditto for a dir full if pictures >or pdf's. They are not very compressible. In the days of tapes, a buffer >drive was used to build up each entry as a big file that was then copied to >the tape w/o any shoe-shining of the tapedrive, saveibg the huge wear and tear >of the tape if it had to stop and wait for data from the compressor. Then back >uo a few feet, back forward to begin a fresh write at the end of the previous >track. But since spinning rust is random access, amd so is the vtape, I don't >think the anti-shoeshine has much if any advantage whrn using vtapes. With >some filesystems it might reduce fragmentation but that was never a problem >with ext4. I ran with that buffer drive for about 17 yeas, starting out with a >4 tape seagate dds4 tape drive but it was by far, the least dependable thing >in that whole chain. I was then backing up 3 cnc machines and this ones >predecessor, but the drive needed a months vacation in Oklahoma city about 2x >a year for a new head drum that seagate would not sell me, a CET with >extensive experience replacing even smaller, more precise and damn sure more >expensive at $3500 a copy dvc-pro broadcast vcr heads. So I tried vtapes, >first on a 220G drive but soon opted for a bigger one as they became >available, and had just graduated to a pair of seagates first 2T's, both of >which just disapeared off the sata buss in the middle of the night. the main >drive for this machine and the amanda drive. They were about 2 weeks old. So I >rebuilt this machine using a 500G Samsung SSD. I was out of the amanda >business and lost everything with those 2 failures, whih upset me so much I >never tried to warranty them. I was done with spinning rust. > >Some of the loss was the only pix of my first wife who had a stroke and died >in '68 at 34. Left me with 3 children to raise, but the big C and a bottle of >scotch has since eliminated them. And my personal email archive that went back >to '98 when I built my first linux machine using a 400 mhz k6 cpu. Put RedHat >5.0 on it. And I was in hog heaven, I never owned a windows machine until I >needed one for the road after I retired in 2002 and became a consultant, going >around to other tv stations putting out engineering fires created by wannabe >engineers. The windows xp on it lasted about 2 weeks that it took me to find >out windows xp had no drivers for the radio in it, but mandrake did. > >Amanda keeps a database, so if something gets erased you need later, it could >be recovered as long as in my case 60 days later before the vtape has been >reused. > >One of the things my wrapper did was append that database to the end of that >vtape when amanda was finished from its nightly run, thereby making it >possible to do a bare metal recovery to the state that existed during the run. >Without that, you lost the most recent run because the database you backed up >was yesterdays. > >So AFAIAC, amanda was the king. Then amanda was handed over to Zmanda, who >eventually went bust and sold it to betsol, who has done zip for it in several >years. Community support from other users is all thats left. >Not the end of it of course, but somebody who actually cares needs to fork it >and become its new leader. 95% of the work on amanda has been driven by >changes in tar over the last decade+. > >> What are the use cases where Amanda still beats the pants down of >> competitors like Borg or Bup? > >I know nothing about either of those. This thread ought to have input from >their users so people can make more informed decisions as to which is best for >their situation. >> >> >> Stefan >Take care & stay well, Stefan, and other readers. >> >> . > >Cheers, Gene Heskett. >-- >"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: > soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." >-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940) >If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable. > - Louis D. Brandeis >Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/> >
