[kwlug-disc] btrfs/zfs for backups

[John Johnson]

>
> I am officially unhappy with Microsoft DFS replication. Earlier this
> year I set up a couple of Windows Server 2008 R2 boxes to synchronize
> big backup files over a wireless link, and it does not work well at
> all. So now I am re-evaluating, and once again thinking of using some
> Free Software filesystems for my job.
>    
Dunno about MS DFS. Dunno about btrfs/zfs. (Added the latter to maintain 
the *ix focus.)

But, in the past couple of days, I did a [manual] directory [folder] 
copy from one peer PC to another on an MS LAN.
Then I noted that the timestamp on the parent directory [folder] and 
the  directories [folders] within were all set at the date/time of the 
copy.
I am of the mind that the timestamp of files and directories are part of 
the contents and the historical record of the same.

I recalled seeing something similar about 10 or 12 years ago with the MS 
file compression/decompression utility.
The date/time stamp of the files and folders did not follow into the ZIP 
image and were not reconstructed when unzipped.
At the time I looked this up and found on some MS site that this is 
known, was not going to be "fixed", and was designated "by design".
I suspect that it was not "by design" and was an accident. And that the 
"fix" was determined to be superfluous by management.

Fortunately, third party ZIP tools do capture the file/folder timstamps 
and recreate these when the archive is unzipped.

Another MS Gotcha.
(Apologies for the MS distraction on this *ix list.)

JohnJ