Hello,

My backup device is an Iomega REV drive, each disc has 34Gb capacity, and Iomega quote 90Gb with compression. They don't supply any linux help or advice, but it is a UDF device. I've managed to get it working using 'udftools' from sourceforge, and it's OK.

Currently I'm using rsync to make the backups each night, and apart form the first backup to each disc which takes ages, it seems to work ok. However, I'm backing up 30Gb on a 34Gb disc, and it's getting fuller. Also, random read/writes to the device are quite slow, so with 80,000 files it takes ages to get any info from things like 'du'

What I need is some backup software that will:

a) write out a single archive to the device (like tar)
b) compress the data during transfer (also like tar)
c) can perform differential updates rather than full backup (like rsync)
d) can be configured using shell, not GUI.

Would you be able to recommend anything?

Kind regards,
Steve

I'd recommend Dar . It consists of a binary component, with scripts to control backups. It handles full and differential backups.

Like tar, it will make one large backup, if you want it to, or cut the backup into slices for writing to zip, jaz, cd, dvd, whatever. The 'whatever' is controled via the scripts.

Unlike tar, it doesn't make one large compressed backup, it makes one large backup of individually compressed files. If one is corrupt, you risk loosing only one. In some cases, Dar has a skip-ahead feature that can skip over corrupt portions of a file and restore the major portion (hopefully you can restore the missing parts from other sources). I've backed up a 7.7 Gig installation to 2.7 Gig in the backup.

Dar allows you to specify which files to NOT compress, because they're already compressed. Such files are flagged by file extension.

Dar also has a list feature to list the contents of a backup. Files flaged as WORSE are larger after compression than before. The script can then be edited to flag those files, by extension, to not compress.

Directories with contents that you don't want backed up (such as /proc and /devfs) can be pruned: i.e., preserve the directory structure, but don't backup the files in them.

If you decide to try it and have problems, feel free to PM me, and I can send you my copy of the TUTORIAL, which I've edited to include comments from the author, and commands I've tried that worked.
Dar includes a static version of itself (with all necessary library files) which can be included in a backup. In the event of some catastrophe, the static version can be used to run the restore.

You have the option of using the .duc (dar user control) script to control what gets backed up, and how, or writing your own bash script with all the options on one long line (escaped with \ at the end of each line before pressing enter).

Many thanks bigrigdriver, dar is absolutely perfect for my needs (and I imagine anyone else's too). I'm still a Linux newbie and on a very steep learning curve. I appreciate your offer of help, so I will probably ask you but not until I've got at least something working myself.

Many thanks again,
Steve : )