Timothy J Massey wrote at about 18:49:57 -0400 on Tuesday, April 12, 2011:
 > "Jeffrey J. Kosowsky" <backuppc AT kosowsky DOT org> wrote on 04/12/2011 
 > 05:20:07 
 > PM:
 > 
 > > Timothy J Massey wrote at about 15:43:28 -0400 on Tuesday, April 12, 
 > 2011:
 > >  I think #4 is underappreciated given how cheap hardware is
 > > nowadays.
 > 
 > It's the only way I do redundancy with my backup servers in production. 
 > Period.
 > 
 > > For the 2nd "backup" version, you can potentially get by
 > > with less frequent runs say perhaps just 1 full a week. Of course, you
 > > won't have as granular a series of fulls & incrementals, but since
 > > this is a reserve backup, you may be satisfied with that. And if not
 > > then once every longer period of time you can do a bit copy of your
 > > primary BackupPC partition if you want. I end up using a lowly 1.2GHz
 > >  Arm CPU plug computer with just 500MB memory and 500 MB flash plus a
 > > 1TB USB external drive to serve as my 2nd backup.
 > 
 > All of this is an excellent point and I agree with all of it.  I use VIA 
 > EPIA systems for full production:  you can't buy slower boxes.  Yet they 
 > back up lots of clients.  Some people will say, "But I don't have time to 
 > do two full backups a day!"  In that case, what they're really trying to 
 > build is a "server proxy".  They then kill themselves running into all 
 > kinds of difficulties that they simply would not have if they just used 
 > two BackupPC servers.
 > 
 > And if your incremental backups truly fill up the entire backup window, 
 > then you have problems:  what happens when (not if) your dataset grows? In 
 > other words, you've put in a crummy solution that *will* fail.  Why not 
 > fix it now instead of trying to get clever (read: stupid) with your 
 > backups?

Glad we agree :)
Another advantage I forgot to mention is that this gives 2 independent
backups vs. a backup of a backup. If you are backing up a backup
archive then not only does the theoretical chance of random errors
multiply but the very real chance of silent corruption in your initial
backup will be faithfully replicated and you may never know it until
one day you need to restore... And since most people probably don't
keep unlimited multi-TB backups of archives it won't take too many
weeks before all your archive backups are corrupted (assuming you
rotate through a limited number of drives).

Just as a side point, my plugcomputer + USB drive is so small and
portable that I actually have it located inside my network box. And it
is so replicable that I can easily just rsync the plug flash memory
(512MB) onto another spare plug, grab a new USB drive, do a quick
partition, and voila I have a new redundant BackupPC server. In fact,
I set it up so that the plug on boot looks for an attached USB drive
mount point and if it exists then it starts BackupPC, if not then it
does nothing.

 > 
 > > AGREED - this topic has been discussed ad-nauseum on the list to date...
 > 
 > You might sense my frustration...  :(
 > 
 > Timothy J. Massey
 > 
 >  
 > Out of the Box Solutions, Inc. 
 > Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
 > http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com
 > tmassey AT obscorp DOT com 
 >  
 > 22108 Harper Ave.
 > St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
 > Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
 > Cell: (586)945-8796 
 > 
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forrester Wave Report - Recovery time is now measured in hours and minutes
not days. Key insights are discussed in the 2010 Forrester Wave Report as
part of an in-depth evaluation of disaster recovery service providers.
Forrester found the best-in-class provider in terms of services and vision.
Read this report now!  http://p.sf.net/sfu/ibm-webcastpromo
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