In <20100202135559.GA5883@ra.ncl.ac.uk>, Jon Dowland wrote:
>On Tue, Feb 02, 2010 at 12:19:49PM +0100, Rafał Radecki
>wrote:
>> I plan to install Windows 2008 as a guest. I want to use
>> something like LVM snapshots for backups.
>
>Just to pick up on this point, I would suggest that LVM on
>its own is not an adequate backup solution.

Agreed.

>Used to have a
>non-moving target for some other backup system, fine,

Yes, it is a convenient way to "quiesce" the file system so that you get a
consistent view of it throughout the whole of the backup process.

>but
>you definitely want to have a backup system which stores
>your data somewhere other than the disks in your
>production server.

You backups should be protection against at least: (a) user error, (b) normal
hardware failure, and (c) disaster.

user error: "I deleted something important, can you get it back"
normal hardware failure: "Disk #7 needed to be replaced soon, er, now. SMART
just failed it."
disaster: "The building the server was in burned down / flooded"

Snapshots really only cover (a). Normal RAID really only covers (b).
Layering the two still doesn't address (c).
--
Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. ,= ,-_-. =.
bss@iguanasuicide.net ((_/)o o(\_))
ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy `-'(. .)`-'
http://iguanasuicide.net/ \_/

On Tue, Feb 02, 2010 at 09:32:17AM -0600, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:
> In <20100202135559.GA5883@ra.ncl.ac.uk>, Jon Dowland wrote:

> You backups should be protection against at least: (a) user error, (b) normal
> hardware failure, and (c) disaster.

I find the website <http://taobackup.com/sanctuary.html> a
useful/entertaining checklist to work against when it comes
to architecting a backup solution.

(I *think* the product it is supposed to be advertising is
long dead)