backup solution 4574
That's really an "archive". As I said, keeping six or twelve times one week's worth ofbackupis sufficient overkill for the purposes ofbackup-.
Well, the purpose is different. I imagine you want it as a final arbiter in case you grow doubtful about the authenticity of some backup files, for example. Or perhaps it...
Of course the problem of a person not noticing that they have lost a file for months is a problem, but it's not a problem that can be beat simply. Not by using tapes instead of hard disks for your backups, or indeed, by using different numbers and types of backups - one just reduces the gap in coverage in those ways. So you eventually get somebody who lost his file five years ago and just noticed.
The idea of a backup system is to provide recovery facilities for certain failure scenarios, and certain usage scenarios. Change either of those variables and you get a different optimal solution. For most WORKING purposes, a spare set of hard disks containing 12 weeks worth of weekly images and daily incrementals is more than good enough. If your data has HISTORICAL value (mine doesn't), then you may like to extend that to infinity, but it doesn't count as "backup" in my view .. backup of what? Not of LIVE data.
We used to make 6 month and yearly dvd images as well, but nobody ever ever ever ever used them. In my opinion "one week" would be good enough for 99.99% of all requirements, and "one day" good enough for 80%.
Those are ARCHIVES.
Peter
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