[TriLUG] backups onto CD

[Ed Hill]

On Mon, 2002-06-10 at 21:12, Nathan Conrad wrote:
> 
> I have decided to start backing up my files (It is about
> time....). Because I already have a CD-R, this is my perfered medium
> onto which I will write data.


Hi Nathan,

I wouldn't be too concerned with cute incremental features if you
currently have *nothing* in the way of backups.  Having had multiple
drives fail on me in the past (and, as a result, having lost a month of
work once), I'd be in a hurry to get my data backed up.

As a starting point, try:

  mkisofs -R -J -f -o  file.iso  /path/to/backup
  mkisofs -R -J -o  file.iso  /path/to/backup

and

  cdrecord -v -speed=8 -dev=0,0 -eject  file.iso

hth,
Ed

ps - CDRs are incredibly cheap.  They are also somewhat flaky.  
     We've all seen mis-burnt disks, scratches, and other types 
     of failures.  I'd not be in a hurry to setup an incremental 
     backup system that relies on the validity of any one CDR.

     Instead, I'd do complete "snapshot" backups and would verify 
     the contents of each disk by comparing MD5sums.  Heres a way 
     to speed that process:

       find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 md5sum | sort > /tmp/sums

     and then diff the results files.


-- 
Edward H. Hill III, PhD 
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