I was given a generous gift. A WD 1TB drive if you must know(somewhat bragging). Now considering I only have one drive and I plan on using it as my / and storage drive since it is quite faster then what I currently have. I was wondering about backup solutions. I reinstall Slack pretty much every time a new release comes out. I have a massive video, music and picture library that I want to keep safe.

What is some of the preferred methods for backup. I plan on getting an identical drive in the future. I'm unsure of post-install RAID setups and if it is possible. That is the solution I would like but wonder about that fact I reinstall/upgrade quite often. Are there better solutions out there?

Thanks in advance

Well to be honest raid isn't really a backup solution.. it's more about redundancy and fault tolerance.

Imagine if you accidentally delete something... with raid it is gone forever. Not that raid isn't a good idea just that I don't consider it as a proper data backup.

I'd suggest you rsync to an external drive and use hard-linking to conserve space.

There are several backup scripts around that will save you writing your own too rsnapshot and backuppc are a couple that spring to mind.

I believe another option is LVM snapshots but I personally have not had any experience with this method.

I get what your saying. An external drive may be a great option. I looked into rsnapshot and it appears that it will do what I want. I think you helped me make up my mind. I live in FL so when the hurricanes come I can grab my external drive and run!!!

The RAID 1 setup i was thinking about sounds interesting, but I don't think it will be as easy considering it would have to be post-install and I still have not found a way to explain how to do that. Im looking into LVM, which seems to do something similiar but still don't have enough knowledge of it.

Thanks

Yes having the backup external is a very good idea.

Well to simplify it you start by creating a degraded RAID 1 set.

RAID 1 can run with just one drive so you copy your data to that and then once you are happy that things are ok you simply add the second drive to the array.
It's also best to have two identical disks if you want to use RAID 1.

A couple of links that may be helpful.

http://www.userlocal.com/articles/ra...ackware-12.php
http://transamrit.net/docs/slackware/README_RAID.TXT

Thanks..I appreciate the links. I shall now do some reading.

I vote for DVDs. Or if you trust BDs then you can use those. I also use dvdisaster for important backups.

Okay I have been reading about RAID devices and find that if I have an external drive I really don't need this. But RAID 0 perked my interests. The only part that confuses me is the idea of not using a swap partition. What does the system use then? Does this cause instability? Is it worth it? I cannot seem to find a good answer.

No you still use a swap partition but you don't put the swaps on raid.

Instead you create a normal swap partition on each drive and give them the same priority in your fstab.

an example:

Yikes!.. even allowing for dual layer disks, 1TB would take in the region of 125 dvd-r disks for a full copy. You can see why people are starting to backup to usb external hard drives these days.

RAID0/AID0 for backup purposes ?!?!?!?!?

You need to take your medicine ...

If one drive dies or gets corrupt all data will be lost on both drives PERMANENTLY AND IRREPARABLY WITHOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF USING ANY DATA CARVING OR RECOVERY TECHNIQUES !!!

I agree. You are doubling your chances of losing the data here.

I just recently purchased an external raid enclosure (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816111073) with two 1TB WD babies :P (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136284) for the very purpose of redundancy (RAID-1). It's fine to use an external hard drive as a back-up solution, but what if it crashes? That's why you want RAID-1. In my case, these hard drives come with a 5-year warranty, so if one fails, I can send it in and get a replacement without losing any of my data.

I wasn't planning on using RAID 0 for backup purposes. The idea peaked my interest. I initially was planning on using RAID 1 for backing up data, but looked(given advice) into it a bit more and decided some external storage was needed. The RAID 1 and external solution does seem the best route but also the most expensive. So for now I think I'm gonna get another 1tb drive and put them in a RAID 1. Then when I get my tax return I'll consider that external drive.

That is the same drive I have and now it is time to purchase the other.