On Thu, Dec 30, 2021 at 04:15:50PM -0800, Russell Senior wrote:
> It seems slightly weird to me to be excluding files literally (and I
> mean "literally" literally, not figuratively) intended as backups from
> backups.

Dirvish has exclude lists; it is safer to specify which
drives to backup or not backup in the config file, rather
than add complicated extra code to figure out which
drive(s) or partition(s) to exclude. 

I make daily incrementals to one machine, weekly
incrementals to another, and make an occasional backup
drive copy for a safety deposit box at my bank.  Except
not lately, during COVID I avoid the bank, and all other
airspaces that may contain shouting maskless morons.

Note for anyone using VERY LARGE hard drives for dirvish
in this way:  format the drive with a shit-ton of extra
inodes, or you will use those up long before you run out
of data sectors.  Perhaps there are file system types that
can reconfigure data space into extra inodes, and also 
reconfigure around emerging patches of failed disk; this
would be handy to fill a large backup drive chock full.

Second note:  Solid state drives seem attractive for 
backups, but they haven't been around long enough for
all the very-long-term failure modes to be discovered.
Using both magnetic and solid-state backup media may
be safest for the wealthy and ultra-paranoid.

Third note:  I liked dirvish so much that I hosted it 
for more than a decade.  Last year, I completed 
arrangements for a new SABDFL in New Zealand.

Backup your backup software in a different hemisphere,
in a nation that takes pandemics seriously.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          [email protected]

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