On 26/09/2021 16:38, Peter Humphrey wrote:
Or, I could connect a second USB-3 drive to a different interface, then read
from one and write to the other, with or without the SATA between.
If you've got a second drive, consider changing your strategy ...
First of all, you want eSATA or USB3 for the speed ...
Format the drive with lvm, and create an lv-partition big enough to hold
your backup, but not much more.
Work out the syntax for an in-place rsync backup (sorry I haven't done
it, I can't help.
Every time you make a backup, snapshot the lv before you do it.
That way, the inplace rsync will only actually write data that has
changed. Your backup volume will grow at an incremental rate, but you'll
actually have full backups.
The only downside is if the backup gets damaged, it will corrupt every
copy of the files affected at one stroke, bit if you are using said
second drive, you can repurpose your first drive if you can back up
those tar files to dvd or whatever (or throw them away if they've served
their purpose, but I guess they haven't ...). And by alternating the
backup drives, you've got two distinct copies.
Cheers,
Wol
