[kwlug-disc] Filesystems for backups

[opengeometry at yahoo.ca]

1.  I chose btrfs mainly because I didn't want to throw away Samsung
    1TBs that I paid good money for.  (Yes, they're still going, while
    WDs and Seagates have all been replaced.)  I use "raid 1" option
    which means, in btrfs context, a block is copied on some other
    device.  Harddisks need not be all same size, so it's not raid 1 in
    mdadm sense.

2.  I take daily, weekly, and monthly snapshots of backup.  I used to
    take series of daily snapshots, but settled on daily, weekly, and
    monthly cron jobs from /etc/cron.*.  Main disadvantage is that if
    1st of month is also Sunday, then you will end up with all the
    snaphots being the same.

3.  "Scrubbing" takes long long time.

4.  I don't think you have to prepare the disk before adding to btrfs
    setup.  (It's been long time since I added one.)  But, for the first
    system, you would do "mkfs.btrfs" like any other filesystem.

5.  Performance wise, it's ok for backup.
-- 
William Park <opengeometry at yahoo.ca>

On Wed, Aug 07, 2019 at 09:27:13PM -0400, Paul Nijjar wrote:
> 
> Tell me more. Do you configure the disks in btrfs in any particular
> way? How do you feel about this solution?
> 
> - Paul
> 
> On Wed, Aug 07, 2019 at 11:26:34PM +0000, William Park via kwlug-disc wrote:
> > I'm using btrfs on leftover hard disks as backup.--William