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Trick: Back up like an expert with rsync |
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Wednesday, 18 July 2007 |
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In the last two months I've been traveling a lot. During the same
period my main desktop computer went belly up. I would have been in
trouble without rsync at my disposal -- but thanks to my regular use of
this utility, my data (or most of it, anyway) was already copied
offsite just waiting to be used. It takes a little time to become
familiar with rsync, but once you are, you should be able to handle
most of your backup needs with just a short script.
What's so great about rsync? First, it's designed to speed up file
transfer by copying the differences between two files rather than
copying an entire file every time. For example, when I'm writing this
article, I can make a copy via rsync now and then another copy later.
The second (and third, fourth, fifth, etc.) time I copy the file, rsync
copies the differences only. That takes far less time, which
is especially important when you're doing something like copying a
whole directory offsite for daily backup. The first time may take a
long time, but the next will only take a few minutes (assuming you
don't change that much in the directory on a daily basis). Read more at Linux.com
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Tips and Tricks 
