Backing Up

When people talk about servers and backing up, it is important to distinguish between a server that backs up other computers and a method for backing up data on a server. I am doing the latter since I keep all my data on the server anyway. I may look into using the server to back up other computers as my kids get older and I have more computers but for now it is not an issue.

I use a 3 tier backup system. The first tier is the RAID 5 array. This protects against hard disk failure by providing the ability to continue operation if one disk fails without losing any data. Refer to the section on RAID for details.

The second tier is to copy files to backup sets on a completely separate hard drives. This protects against losing two drives at once and provides an older copy of your data in case you accidentally delete something and can't get it back. I use two backup sets on two separate NAS devices (Maxtor Shared Storage II 1TB). One NAS device I keep at work. The other one is at home attached to the network and gets automatically backup up once a week. About once a month I take the weekly one to work and bring the work one home. This is basically an abreviated version of Grandfather Father Son which I call Father and Stepson. See the section on Maxtor NAS for details of this setup.

The third tier as mentioned above is to remove a backup set to a geographically remote area. This protects against theft or fire. You can keep them at work or at a friends house or in a safe deposit box.

Of course there are many ways you can backup your data. You can also look into:
Tower of Hanoi.
Grandfather Father Son
Backup by copying files
Backup by zipping or making a tarball
Backup by making disk images.
sarab
amanda
Disk ARchive (DAR)

Linux Reality episode 63