[mythtv-users] MythTV backup

[Richard Freeman]

Dan Ritter wrote:
> 
> 3. Hourly rsync of database dump and all recorded files to an
> independent NAS, preferably running a different OS from your big
> machine. Extra points for having the bandwidth to do this
> offsite.
> 

There are other options instead of rsync, with various pros/cons.

The advantage of rsync is that it protects against rm -rf * and other 
logical errors - as long as you kill the rsync job before it runs.

The downside is that you leave open a window of non-protection, and it 
is a hit on CPU/disk/bandwidth every time it runs (granted, rsync is 
about as efficient as it could be, but...).

There are other options that are instant in time and a little more 
efficient since they maintain a continuous mirror.

One is to use mdadm to create a mirror on a remote system (possibly 
using iSCSI or something along those lines).  As long as you have a 
local device that points to a remote storage location you can make it a 
mirror of anything, and there is an option to make it a write-only 
mirror (that is, it doesn't get rid from except in the event of a 
failure of the local device - the option is intended for exactly this 
scenario).

Another option that I can think of offhand MIGHT be AFS.  I don't know 
if it guarantees redundancy or not (possibly as an option), but it is a 
distributed filesystem that is pretty advanced.  Its main use is if you 
have a dozen computers that need to mount the same set of shares with 
local caching of data and minimum data transfer, but it might be 
possible to configure it to do what you want it to.

I guess the nice thing about MythTV is choice - all this is massive 
overkill for my tastes, but I do run raid5 and I like the fact that myth 
allows me to do as much or as little as I like with my DVR.  I can keep 
99% out-of-the-box and fiddle with the 1% that matters to me...