hello everyone,
i am trying to backup some data to another dir with rsync

the command i use is:

rsync -grP --delete /mnt/hd/current /mnt/hd/backups

'current' is a huge folder (140GB). to be backing it up everynight...
however i read in the rsync manual that only the differences are being copied.
however it still seems to be taking ages to complete the rsync - just like the 1st time even though i haven't altered the contents of the dir at all in the mean time...

also the progress does show that things are being copied around
am i missing something?
nass

try using the -a option instead of -g. What I use is -avz.

You do realize it is not a very safe strategy to have source and backup on the same drive. If the drive fails, no backup!

Brian

the hd is a raid5
i think i got that part of possible failure somewhat covered
-a eh?
should i delete the backups? that exist at the moment?
or just change to -a and let rsync do the rest?

cause -a is making an archive right?

It's not making an archive in the sense of tar, but it preserves all file information such as ownership and timestamps. I think this is why rsync processes all the files when you just use the -g option, because it does not recognize the files as being the same. -a is equivalent to -rlptgoD. I don't think you need to delete your old files.

Rsync is really useful for mirroring, but it's not a real back-up solution because, eg. if you have a corrupted file yesterday and you rsync last night, you now have a corrupted "backup".

Brian

hmmm yes... you would be refering to svn perhaps?

Sure, you could use svn. You could also just tar your files. You can do incremental backups with tar (google for some useful scripts) so you aren't doing the whole 140G every night. If I understand RAID5, I would copy the tar archive off to cd/dvd every once in a while. If 1 drive fails your okay but vulnerable because if the second fails you're toast, so if your server is running and you're on vacation, for example...

Brian