Disk Death

[David A. Bandel]

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 12:48 AM, Kurt Wall <kwall at kurtwerks.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 02, 2009 at 07:58:14PM -0700, Collins Richey wrote:
>> On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 6:07 PM, Kurt Wall <kwall at kurtwerks.com> wrote:
>> > After my last catastrophic failure, I started
>> > making regular backups of $HOME, /etc, my databases (/var/lib/pgsql/data),
>> > and /var/www.
>>
>> Extra bonus points for not listing /var/lib/mysql <grin>.
>
> :-)
>
>> Sorry about the failure; been there, done that. I need to remember to
>> backup more often.
>
> Stuff happens. Happily, I had a backup and a spare disk.
>

Just a thought, but backing up /var/lib/*sql is generally not a good idea.

Database backups come in 3 flavors: hot, cold, and fuzzy.

A hot backup is performed by the database engine on a running SQL
database. (I have a good pgsql backup script if you need one.).  These
take into account db changes as they happen.  A good hot backup runs a
vacuum first to reduce size.

A cold backup is performed by copying the various database files while
the db engine is shut down.  These work well, but who wants to shut
down their database while they take the time do a backup?

A fuzzy backup is a copy of the various database file (like a cold
backup), but done with the database engine running.  These rarely work
as the engine will often make a change in the middle of your backup.
Avoid these types of backups like the plague.

But you may already know all this.

Ciao,

David A. Bandel
-- 
Focus on the dream, not the competition.
            - Nemesis Air Racing Team motto