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This is probably one of those topics that gets regurgitated periodically, but it's always good to get some fresh answers.
The small consultancy business I work for wants to set up a new file server with remote backup. In the past we have used a Windows XP file server and plugged in a couple of external USB drives when space runs out. Backups were performed nightly to a USB drive and taken offsite to a trusted employees home.
They are looking to Linux for a new file server (I think more because they found out how much a new Windows file server would be).
I'm not a server guy but I have set up a simple Debian-based web server at work for a specific intranet application, but when I was asked about ideas for the new system the best I could come up with was maybe ssh+rsync (which I have only recently started using myself so I'm no expert by any means). Using Amazon's cloud service has been suggested, as well as the remote being a dedicated machine at a trusted employee's home (probably with a new dedicated line in) or with our local ISP (if they can offer such a service). A new dedicated line out of the office has also been suggested, I think mainly because daily file changes can potentially be quite large (3D CAD models etc). A possible advantage of the remote being nearby is that the initial backup could be using a portable hard drive instead of having to uploading terabytes of data (I guess there is always courier services though).
Anyway, just thought I'd chuck it out there. A lot of you guys probably already set up and/or look after remote backup systems. Even if anyone just has some ideas regarding potential traps/pitfalls would be handy. The company is fairly small (about 20-odd employees) so I don't think they need anything overly elaborate, but all feedback is appreciated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 11 2014, @04:27AM
> And what about the very first backup. 20 machines, full backup.
I wasn't addressing the issue of level-zeros, I was simply pointing out that your claims about how incremental backups work are obsolete.
> 'Only the disk blocks with changed data get copied.'
> He rewrote every file. The disk blocks are all in different locations, very likely.
If you are trying to say that the data offsets within each disk block changed because the file structures aren't block-aligned, well sure that's always a risk. There will always be pathological cases. But designing a system based on the rare pathological case brings its own risks - you identified one yourself when you pointed out how hard it is to get regular people to haul a disk offsite.
Like everything in life, it's a series of trade-offs. But you can't make an accurate assessment of the trade-offs if you aren't starting with a realistic evaluation of the available options.