* [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? @ 2011-09-30 15:19 Axel Belinfante 2011-09-30 15:53 ` Anthony Sorace ` (5 more replies) 0 siblings, 6 replies; 35+ messages in thread From: Axel Belinfante @ 2011-09-30 15:19 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs Just curious what 9fans use, for home and/or work, to backup their macs. time machine? to a local (usb,firewire) disk? or remote (time capsule, nas (not officially sanctioned by apple))? or eat our own dog food and use eg. venti? or tra? or no backup necessary because everything important is already elsewhere? (in the cloud, or in a version management system) or? context: we are reconsidering how to do this at work, and prefer not to reinvent the wheel. (at home I just backup my mac to a readynas box using time machine). Sorry for the off-topic nature of this post, but the fact that 9fans will be aware of less-common solutions like venti - not to mention the presence of coraid people here - made me look for experience/expertise here. Regards, Axel. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-09-30 15:19 [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? Axel Belinfante @ 2011-09-30 15:53 ` Anthony Sorace 2011-09-30 17:43 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) 2011-11-01 18:15 ` smiley 2011-09-30 19:50 ` Latchesar Ionkov ` (4 subsequent siblings) 5 siblings, 2 replies; 35+ messages in thread From: Anthony Sorace @ 2011-09-30 15:53 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs > Just curious what 9fans use, for home and/or work, to backup their macs. I use venti. On servers, I use /n/sources/contrib/anothy/bin/rc/vacbak from cron and have the system submit the score to my plan9 server. I tried using vbackup first, but there's a huge volume of stuff on these systems I don't need to have backups of (and couldn't figure out how to access the results from plan9). vacme should be suitable for any unix host with p9p installed (with path changes for your local setup). At home I have a similar script that's a bit more OS X specific that operates similarly. I use it periodically, but (as with any on-demand backup system) never as often as I ought. When non-plan9 people ask me this question I tell them to get an external disk and use Time Machine. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-09-30 15:53 ` Anthony Sorace @ 2011-09-30 17:43 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) 2011-09-30 17:59 ` erik quanstrom 2011-11-01 18:15 ` smiley 1 sibling, 1 reply; 35+ messages in thread From: Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) @ 2011-09-30 17:43 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans > When non-plan9 people ask me this question I tell them to get an external > disk and use Time Machine. I would tell it to Plan9 folks as well. There is no way to recover from a catestrophic disk failure on a Mac using venti. Two days ago I spent $137 on a 1TB external USB disk. I now have an encrypted backup of my laptop from which I can recover my complete environment on new hardware. If your scheme can't do that, it's not a backup. I.e. don't confuse 'backup' with 'archive'. If you need a backup in the true sense of the word, your only option is Time Machine. --lyndon ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-09-30 17:43 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) @ 2011-09-30 17:59 ` erik quanstrom 2011-09-30 19:21 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) ` (4 more replies) 0 siblings, 5 replies; 35+ messages in thread From: erik quanstrom @ 2011-09-30 17:59 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans On Fri Sep 30 13:51:19 EDT 2011, lyndon@orthanc.ca wrote: > > When non-plan9 people ask me this question I tell them to get an external > > disk and use Time Machine. > > I would tell it to Plan9 folks as well. There is no way to > recover from a catestrophic disk failure on a Mac using venti. > > Two days ago I spent $137 on a 1TB external USB disk. I now have an > encrypted backup of my laptop from which I can recover my complete > environment on new hardware. If your scheme can't do that, it's not a > backup. > > I.e. don't confuse 'backup' with 'archive'. If you need a backup > in the true sense of the word, your only option is Time Machine. i have a hard time believing that this couldn't work. backup: 1. power down mac. remove hard drive. 2. stuff drive as one gigantic file into venti. restore: 1. copy your backup onto drive 2. install hard drive. power up mac. i'll admit it's not convienent, but it is a workable alternative. and it leads to the fact that any storage that can snapshot itself can give you backups. putting the snapshot into venti is an exercize for the reader, as is determining if using venti like that is a good idea or not. - erik ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-09-30 17:59 ` erik quanstrom @ 2011-09-30 19:21 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) 2011-09-30 19:42 ` erik quanstrom 2011-10-01 8:21 ` Anthony Sorace ` (3 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 1 reply; 35+ messages in thread From: Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) @ 2011-09-30 19:21 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans > backup: > 1. power down mac. remove hard drive. > 2. stuff drive as one gigantic file into venti. > > restore: > 1. copy your backup onto drive > 2. install hard drive. power up mac. Disassembling the machine every night to back it up is not on. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-09-30 19:21 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) @ 2011-09-30 19:42 ` erik quanstrom 2011-09-30 19:45 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) 0 siblings, 1 reply; 35+ messages in thread From: erik quanstrom @ 2011-09-30 19:42 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans On Fri Sep 30 15:22:19 EDT 2011, lyndon@orthanc.ca wrote: > > backup: > > 1. power down mac. remove hard drive. > > 2. stuff drive as one gigantic file into venti. > > > > restore: > > 1. copy your backup onto drive > > 2. install hard drive. power up mac. > > Disassembling the machine every night to back it up is not on. how come you keep changing the parameters after you get in-principle solutions? :-) - erik ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-09-30 19:42 ` erik quanstrom @ 2011-09-30 19:45 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) 2011-09-30 19:53 ` erik quanstrom 0 siblings, 1 reply; 35+ messages in thread From: Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) @ 2011-09-30 19:45 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans > how come you keep changing the parameters after you get > in-principle solutions? :-) Ask the guys who make those crappy hard disk ball bearings. They are the ones who keep changing the parameters :-P ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-09-30 19:45 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) @ 2011-09-30 19:53 ` erik quanstrom 0 siblings, 0 replies; 35+ messages in thread From: erik quanstrom @ 2011-09-30 19:53 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans On Fri Sep 30 15:46:25 EDT 2011, lyndon@orthanc.ca wrote: > > how come you keep changing the parameters after you get > > in-principle solutions? :-) > > Ask the guys who make those crappy hard disk ball bearings. > They are the ones who keep changing the parameters :-P there are no hard drives with ball bearings. - erik ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-09-30 17:59 ` erik quanstrom 2011-09-30 19:21 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) @ 2011-10-01 8:21 ` Anthony Sorace 2011-10-01 15:14 ` Ethan Grammatikidis ` (2 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 0 replies; 35+ messages in thread From: Anthony Sorace @ 2011-10-01 8:21 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs On Sep 30, 2011, at 13:59, erik quanstrom <quanstro@labs.coraid.com> wrote: > backup: > 1. power down mac. remove hard drive. > 2. stuff drive as one gigantic file into venti. > > restore: > 1. copy your backup onto drive > 2. install hard drive. power up mac. In principal, that's roughly what vbackup does, except with file systems instead of whole disks and without taking things apart. I decided I didn't need to store each version of the OS files; if you want whole images, look at vbackup (or, yes, time machine). I don't buy the backup/archive distinction as defined. It's totally coherent to say "I want a backup of data set xyz", where that isn't exactly one file system. I have backups of the data I care about, and I've judged that, for my usage, the moderate inconvenience and tiny risk of not having full FS backups is worth the trade off. (note I don't dispute that backup/archive is an important distinction, I just think that draws the line in the wrong place.) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-09-30 17:59 ` erik quanstrom 2011-09-30 19:21 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) 2011-10-01 8:21 ` Anthony Sorace @ 2011-10-01 15:14 ` Ethan Grammatikidis 2011-10-01 15:24 ` erik quanstrom 2011-10-01 18:21 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) 2011-11-03 20:54 ` Michaelian Ennis [not found] ` <CAAQydVjZ42C-GTEFT7E2t=dCQ35fvHzqjSYx9a3o+8v+5D1vfA@mail.gmail.c> 4 siblings, 2 replies; 35+ messages in thread From: Ethan Grammatikidis @ 2011-10-01 15:14 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans On Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:59:00 -0400 erik quanstrom <quanstro@labs.coraid.com> wrote: > backup: > 1. power down mac. remove hard drive. > 2. stuff drive as one gigantic file into venti. > > restore: > 1. copy your backup onto drive > 2. install hard drive. power up mac. ROFL! What I guess you don't know is you can more or less do this without disassembling the Mac. Boot the Mac with the right keys pressed (I forget which) and it will emulate a Firewire drive. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-10-01 15:14 ` Ethan Grammatikidis @ 2011-10-01 15:24 ` erik quanstrom 2011-10-01 15:48 ` Ethan Grammatikidis 2011-10-01 18:21 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) 1 sibling, 1 reply; 35+ messages in thread From: erik quanstrom @ 2011-10-01 15:24 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans > erik quanstrom <quanstro@labs.coraid.com> wrote: > > > backup: > > 1. power down mac. remove hard drive. > > 2. stuff drive as one gigantic file into venti. > > > > restore: > > 1. copy your backup onto drive > > 2. install hard drive. power up mac. > > ROFL! What I guess you don't know is you can more or less do this > without disassembling the Mac. Boot the Mac with the right keys pressed > (I forget which) and it will emulate a Firewire drive. i did know that, but that requires more complicated explaination, and only works on macs. in case it wasn't clear enough the first time, my point was that if your storage is fancy enough to be snapshotted, you can do a system-image backup. the system doesn't need to have the capability. in fact, you don't care what system you've got. and as long as your drive isn't soldered to the mb, your storage is fancy enough. after that we're just arguing over convienience. - erik ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-10-01 15:24 ` erik quanstrom @ 2011-10-01 15:48 ` Ethan Grammatikidis 2011-10-01 16:49 ` Venkatesh Srinivas 0 siblings, 1 reply; 35+ messages in thread From: Ethan Grammatikidis @ 2011-10-01 15:48 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans On Sat, 1 Oct 2011 11:24:07 -0400 erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote: > and as long as your drive isn't soldered to the mb, your storage > is fancy enough. after that we're just arguing over convienience. Right. :D ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-10-01 15:48 ` Ethan Grammatikidis @ 2011-10-01 16:49 ` Venkatesh Srinivas 0 siblings, 0 replies; 35+ messages in thread From: Venkatesh Srinivas @ 2011-10-01 16:49 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs When my home directory is less than 2 gigabytes in size, I use dump9660 from Plan 9 port (or a standalone relative). Otherwise I rsync my home to a DragonFly BSD system and take a HAMMER snapshot. -- vs ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-10-01 15:14 ` Ethan Grammatikidis 2011-10-01 15:24 ` erik quanstrom @ 2011-10-01 18:21 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) 2011-10-01 18:29 ` Anthony Sorace 1 sibling, 1 reply; 35+ messages in thread From: Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) @ 2011-10-01 18:21 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans > ROFL! What I guess you don't know is you can more or less do this > without disassembling the Mac. Boot the Mac with the right keys pressed > (I forget which) and it will emulate a Firewire drive. ROFL! What you don't know is (most) Macs no longer have Firewire interfaces. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-10-01 18:21 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) @ 2011-10-01 18:29 ` Anthony Sorace 2011-10-02 15:26 ` Ethan Grammatikidis 0 siblings, 1 reply; 35+ messages in thread From: Anthony Sorace @ 2011-10-01 18:29 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs On Oct 1, 2011, at 14:21 , Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) wrote: > What you don't know is (most) Macs no longer have Firewire interfaces. This works again with the newest Macs with Thunderbolt. Lest this just be even further off topic, the relevant point here is that beyond erik's "unless your storage is soldered to the motherboard" qualifier you can add "and sometimes even if it is". ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-10-01 18:29 ` Anthony Sorace @ 2011-10-02 15:26 ` Ethan Grammatikidis 0 siblings, 0 replies; 35+ messages in thread From: Ethan Grammatikidis @ 2011-10-02 15:26 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans On Sat, 1 Oct 2011 14:29:29 -0400 Anthony Sorace <a@9srv.net> wrote: > On Oct 1, 2011, at 14:21 , Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) wrote: > > > What you don't know is (most) Macs no longer have Firewire interfaces. > > This works again with the newest Macs with Thunderbolt. LOL yeah, I forgot but I knew the same basic idea worked on new macs somehow. It kinda gives new meaning to the physical access problem. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-09-30 17:59 ` erik quanstrom ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2011-10-01 15:14 ` Ethan Grammatikidis @ 2011-11-03 20:54 ` Michaelian Ennis [not found] ` <CAAQydVjZ42C-GTEFT7E2t=dCQ35fvHzqjSYx9a3o+8v+5D1vfA@mail.gmail.c> 4 siblings, 0 replies; 35+ messages in thread From: Michaelian Ennis @ 2011-11-03 20:54 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 1:59 PM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@labs.coraid.com> wrote: > backup: > 1. power down mac. remove hard drive. > 2. stuff drive as one gigantic file into venti. > > restore: > 1. copy your backup onto drive > 2. install hard drive. power up mac. If there were/is block device firewire support in plan 9 one could boot the mac in target mode and copy it over that way. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
[parent not found: <CAAQydVjZ42C-GTEFT7E2t=dCQ35fvHzqjSYx9a3o+8v+5D1vfA@mail.gmail.c>]
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? [not found] ` <CAAQydVjZ42C-GTEFT7E2t=dCQ35fvHzqjSYx9a3o+8v+5D1vfA@mail.gmail.c> @ 2011-11-03 20:57 ` erik quanstrom 0 siblings, 0 replies; 35+ messages in thread From: erik quanstrom @ 2011-11-03 20:57 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans On Thu Nov 3 16:56:29 EDT 2011, michaelian.ennis@gmail.com wrote: > On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 1:59 PM, erik quanstrom > <quanstro@labs.coraid.com> wrote: > > > backup: > > 1. power down mac. remove hard drive. > > 2. stuff drive as one gigantic file into venti. > > > > restore: > > 1. copy your backup onto drive > > 2. install hard drive. power up mac. > > If there were/is block device firewire support in plan 9 one could > boot the mac in target mode and copy it over that way. i've never seen so many practical suggestions to a thought experiment. :-) - erik ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-09-30 15:53 ` Anthony Sorace 2011-09-30 17:43 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) @ 2011-11-01 18:15 ` smiley 2011-11-01 18:57 ` Anthony Sorace 1 sibling, 1 reply; 35+ messages in thread From: smiley @ 2011-11-01 18:15 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs Anthony Sorace <a@9srv.net> writes: > I use venti. On servers, I use /n/sources/contrib/anothy/bin/rc/vacbak from cron > and have the system submit the score to my plan9 server. I tried using vbackup > first, but there's a huge volume of stuff on these systems I don't need to have > backups of (and couldn't figure out how to access the results from plan9). vacme > should be suitable for any unix host with p9p installed (with path changes for > your local setup). Does anyone have a link for that "vacme"? It isn't listed in the lsr on sources, and the Internet doesn't seem to know anything about it. :( Thanks! -- +---------------------------------------------------------------+ |Smiley <smiley@icebubble.org> PGP key ID: BC549F8B | |Fingerprint: 9329 DB4A 30F5 6EDA D2BA 3489 DAB7 555A BC54 9F8B| +---------------------------------------------------------------+ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-11-01 18:15 ` smiley @ 2011-11-01 18:57 ` Anthony Sorace 0 siblings, 0 replies; 35+ messages in thread From: Anthony Sorace @ 2011-11-01 18:57 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1133 bytes --] On Nov 1, 2011, at 14:15 , smiley@icebubble.org wrote: > Anthony Sorace <a@9srv.net> writes: > >> I use venti. On servers, I use /n/sources/contrib/anothy/bin/rc/vacbak from cron >> and have the system submit the score to my plan9 server. I tried using vbackup >> first, but there's a huge volume of stuff on these systems I don't need to have >> backups of (and couldn't figure out how to access the results from plan9). vacme >> should be suitable for any unix host with p9p installed (with path changes for >> your local setup). > > Does anyone have a link for that "vacme"? It isn't listed in the lsr on > sources, and the Internet doesn't seem to know anything about it. :( Sorry, that "vacme" should read "vacbak", which is at the path specified. I have a similar command called vacme (actually "vacme.command", IIRC, to get Finder to make it clickable) I've used for one-off backups, but I don't believe I've ever stuck that up anywhere and don't have it handy. If you're interested in something more for ad hoc backups than recurring ones, I can dig it up and stick it on sources, likely tonight. [-- Attachment #2: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail --] [-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 169 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-09-30 15:19 [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? Axel Belinfante 2011-09-30 15:53 ` Anthony Sorace @ 2011-09-30 19:50 ` Latchesar Ionkov 2011-10-01 15:21 ` Ethan Grammatikidis 2011-09-30 20:01 ` Francisco J Ballesteros ` (3 subsequent siblings) 5 siblings, 1 reply; 35+ messages in thread From: Latchesar Ionkov @ 2011-09-30 19:50 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs At work, I use Time Machine to a Linux server, then vac the Time Machine files to venti. At home, I just use Time Machine to a Linux server. I am planning to add the vac to venti at some point. Thanks, Lucho On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 9:19 AM, Axel Belinfante <Axel.Belinfante@cs.utwente.nl> wrote: > Just curious what 9fans use, for home and/or work, to backup their macs. > > time machine? > to a local (usb,firewire) disk? > or remote (time capsule, nas (not officially sanctioned by apple))? > > or eat our own dog food and use eg. venti? > or tra? > > or no backup necessary because everything important is already elsewhere? > (in the cloud, or in a version management system) > > or? > > > context: we are reconsidering how to do this at work, > and prefer not to reinvent the wheel. > > (at home I just backup my mac to a readynas box using time machine). > > > Sorry for the off-topic nature of this post, but the fact > that 9fans will be aware of less-common solutions like venti - > not to mention the presence of coraid people here - > made me look for experience/expertise here. > > Regards, > Axel. > > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-09-30 19:50 ` Latchesar Ionkov @ 2011-10-01 15:21 ` Ethan Grammatikidis 0 siblings, 0 replies; 35+ messages in thread From: Ethan Grammatikidis @ 2011-10-01 15:21 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans On Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:50:23 -0600 Latchesar Ionkov <lucho@ionkov.net> wrote: > At work, I use Time Machine to a Linux server. You can do this? I tried to use a second internal drive for Time Machine but it claimed "Cannot find wifi" and refused to proceed. (O.o) This was with Leopard; maybe it only worked with Apple-sourced external wifi-connected drives back then. I don't know. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-09-30 15:19 [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? Axel Belinfante 2011-09-30 15:53 ` Anthony Sorace 2011-09-30 19:50 ` Latchesar Ionkov @ 2011-09-30 20:01 ` Francisco J Ballesteros 2011-09-30 21:15 ` Bakul Shah ` (2 subsequent siblings) 5 siblings, 0 replies; 35+ messages in thread From: Francisco J Ballesteros @ 2011-09-30 20:01 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs What I do is to consider the macs as volatile. Very much like "firmware". All the stuff I care about is in our main file server. I might either use my files using the octopus or just cache them in the local disk of the mac when I need that. To recover such "firmware", yes, I use an external disk and time machine, which is what the mac seems to like. On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 5:19 PM, Axel Belinfante <Axel.Belinfante@cs.utwente.nl> wrote: > Just curious what 9fans use, for home and/or work, to backup their macs. > > time machine? > to a local (usb,firewire) disk? > or remote (time capsule, nas (not officially sanctioned by apple))? > > or eat our own dog food and use eg. venti? > or tra? > > or no backup necessary because everything important is already elsewhere? > (in the cloud, or in a version management system) > > or? > > > context: we are reconsidering how to do this at work, > and prefer not to reinvent the wheel. > > (at home I just backup my mac to a readynas box using time machine). > > > Sorry for the off-topic nature of this post, but the fact > that 9fans will be aware of less-common solutions like venti - > not to mention the presence of coraid people here - > made me look for experience/expertise here. > > Regards, > Axel. > > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-09-30 15:19 [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? Axel Belinfante ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2011-09-30 20:01 ` Francisco J Ballesteros @ 2011-09-30 21:15 ` Bakul Shah 2011-10-01 17:22 ` John Stalker 2011-10-02 0:35 ` steve jenkin 5 siblings, 0 replies; 35+ messages in thread From: Bakul Shah @ 2011-09-30 21:15 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs On Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:19:26 +0200 Axel Belinfante <Axel.Belinfante@cs.utwente.nl> wrote: > Just curious what 9fans use, for home and/or work, to backup their macs. I use Time machine on zfs + freebsd + netatalk. [Broken ATM since the Lion uprgade. Need to update to netatalk-2.2.1] > context: we are reconsidering how to do this at work, > and prefer not to reinvent the wheel. May be some zfs based NAS appliance? ZFS snapshots are very cheap and you can delete old ones (if you want more frequent recent backups and less frequent older backups. But I would test how well deletes work when dedup is used). You can probably use netatalk & venti (on Unix) to provide a time machine interface. But I would test venti scaling first. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-09-30 15:19 [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? Axel Belinfante ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2011-09-30 21:15 ` Bakul Shah @ 2011-10-01 17:22 ` John Stalker 2011-10-02 0:35 ` steve jenkin 5 siblings, 0 replies; 35+ messages in thread From: John Stalker @ 2011-10-01 17:22 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs > Just curious what 9fans use, for home and/or work, to backup their macs. At work everything is FreeBSD and backups are not my worry. At home I use rsync to keep a copy of my home directory at work, and just reinstall everything else. So far I've had to do that once. Huge files which can be downloaded again go in symlinked directories, to keep the rsync time manageable. -- John Stalker School of Mathematics Trinity College Dublin tel +353 1 896 1983 fax +353 1 896 2282 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-09-30 15:19 [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? Axel Belinfante ` (4 preceding siblings ...) 2011-10-01 17:22 ` John Stalker @ 2011-10-02 0:35 ` steve jenkin 2011-10-02 1:28 ` erik quanstrom 5 siblings, 1 reply; 35+ messages in thread From: steve jenkin @ 2011-10-02 0:35 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3996 bytes --] 1. I liked the distinction noted between 'backups' and 'archives'. 2. Cloning a drive is of limited use on any system. Isn't "future proof", doesn't scale, doesn't allow for disk size changes or hardware changes. Is a necessary part of an Admin Toolkit, but only for very particular situations. 3. HFS+ stores a lot of metadata which OS/X relies upon. If you chose to backup system that doesn't capture it, you're losing a lot. Not sure if using SMB or NFS stores for Time Machine captures it or not (.../.DS_store ??) [There's enough doco out there and enough tutorials on using network filesystems for TM] 4. With a locally attached drive, mds/mdimporter indexes Time Machine for 'Spotlight'. This is a very useful feature of OS/X, if somewhat annoying as it hammers the disk. 5. Locally attached drives with HFS+ use hard links to "dedup" at the file level. I suspect that on any medium, Time Machine backups up all files modified since last backup. Which is painful and slow for big files that change frequently - like my email files. As a direct consequence, "mail directory" format is a much better idea than "mailbox" format [dir per message + one file per message segment, vs many messages in a single file] 6. Time Machine backups are "well integrated" with the OS/X. *when*, not if, you upgrade your hardware, including replacing a lost laptop, the OS/X install process takes the lastest snapshot as the basis for the new machine. This isn't a mere copy, but a very sophisticated 'merge'. I upgraded from PPC & Tiger to Intel + Snow Leopard, took 3-4 hours [direct, no TM] All apps+data moved & upgraded, modulo PPC-only binaries. I know TM upgrade/restores work - a friend used this for his 2 iMac's @ home. Nothing else I've seen comes close to Time Machine. The "upgrade & merge" feature alone is worth the price of admission, even for a single m/c at home. For a workplace, it's an Admins' Dream... In a workplace, you'll be using network logins and network shares. There may be no reason to personalise machines because the user's 'home directory' is where everything specific to them is stored, and they don't get admin rights on their machine (to install non-standard Apps), do they? I did some graduate study at a local University a few years back. They provided common-access computers: Windows & Mac: machines were a standard image with the 'home directory' mounted via SMB. I thought it worked well for 5-10,000 students. Because students couldn't install random Apps, virus & malware infections were quite infrequent. These days, you could use one of the many VM solutions out there to allow users a way to have a reasonably safe personalised environment - that's backed up, accessible 'everywhere' on-net and not subject to upgrade problems (for the system admins). Do Apple allow OS/X desktop to run under a VM? They certainly insist that OS/X only be run on Apple hardware. Hope this is of some use. Axel Belinfante wrote on 1/10/11 1:19 AM: > Just curious what 9fans use, for home and/or work, to backup their macs. > > time machine? > to a local (usb,firewire) disk? > or remote (time capsule, nas (not officially sanctioned by apple))? > > or eat our own dog food and use eg. venti? > or tra? > > or no backup necessary because everything important is already elsewhere? > (in the cloud, or in a version management system) > > or? > > > context: we are reconsidering how to do this at work, > and prefer not to reinvent the wheel. > > (at home I just backup my mac to a readynas box using time machine). > > > Sorry for the off-topic nature of this post, but the fact > that 9fans will be aware of less-common solutions like venti - > not to mention the presence of coraid people here - > made me look for experience/expertise here. > > Regards, > Axel. > > > -- [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 4865 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-10-02 0:35 ` steve jenkin @ 2011-10-02 1:28 ` erik quanstrom 2011-10-02 2:28 ` steve jenkin 0 siblings, 1 reply; 35+ messages in thread From: erik quanstrom @ 2011-10-02 1:28 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans > 2. Cloning a drive is of limited use on any system. > Isn't "future proof", doesn't scale, doesn't allow for disk size > changes or hardware changes. > Is a necessary part of an Admin Toolkit, but only for very > particular situations. really? what do you mean by "doesn't allow for hardware changes"? i also, i'm pretty sure that whenever the new disk is larger than the end of the last used partition, both fdisk and prep just see more empty space at the end of the partition. judging from the spec, gpt should work the same way. where do you see cloning onto a larger disk failing? cloning a disk is really common for nas appliances, and it's not too hard to make your storage whatever size you require. most advanced storage features of vmware work by cloning storage. i see the the idea of cloning disks becoming more prevalent. - erik ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-10-02 1:28 ` erik quanstrom @ 2011-10-02 2:28 ` steve jenkin 2011-10-02 2:37 ` erik quanstrom 0 siblings, 1 reply; 35+ messages in thread From: steve jenkin @ 2011-10-02 2:28 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs w.r.t. Disk Cloning. you are conflating multiple issues: - hardware disk imaging - managing NAS appliances - handling VM images I agree with you. Cloning drives in low-end NAS appliances is quick, simple and effective. I had a lot of fun a year ago documenting how to clone config and data from one Thecus to another. But that approach doesn't/won't work on high-end systems or 'enterprise grade' LVM systems, like Veritas, and the IBM/HP LVM system. They build in too many checks, because they give you all the tools you need to move data around and keep it 'known' by their system. How many times have you cloned a physical disk yourself, NOT in a NAS, but on Apple hardware for OS/X? If you haven't done exactly that, you have no idea of the magnitude of the problem, or if it is feasible at all. After having to clone disks in systems far too many times, I've come to find it tiresome and time wasting. If the situation demands you do it, you've already failed as an Admin... At home, I have an 80MB (m-e-g-a b-y-t-e) drive in an old PC that I want to access. Really, I'd like to access the data, so how do I do that? And for some extra fun, upgrade the disk on that old existing system so I have more space available. cloning the 80Mb onto a more recent drive won't work. The BIOS notices the mismatch and won't play. More significantly, if I could bodgy-up everything so the new drive worked, I'd still only have 80Mb and no way to expand it. The disk partitioner respects the limits of the drive. If I simply 'dd' the drive onto another, it fails. Couldn't take an image of the drive either: IDE version was so old, modern adaptors wouldn't work. So I figured out how to transfer the files to a 2nd, newer, drive with a large filesystem whilst mounted in the PC. [The system would only allow a maximum filesystem of 472Mb. The rest of the drive was wasted] Having a readable copy of the data, NOTE, not the original hardware-disk-image, I've taken a copy of that filesystem so I can run up a VM in the future. That VM image I can now 'clone' to my hearts content. You are right that cloning disk *images* is an essential part of using/managing VM's. Don't conflate that with cloning physical disks. Physical cloning is not something to trifle with when you're looking after Other People's Data/Systems, more a last-chance desperation measure. [see above. having to clone means everything else has failed] Something we're going to see more of is the physical disk information being incorporated into a motherboard-based security system. We are going to see more "Trusted Platform Module" systems shipped - and they notice little things like changing the drive-id... As well, Apple adopted GPT drives. Not the 'industry standard' disk partitioning. I simply don't know enough to fiddle everything that's needed to support both arrangements - there's a lot of fine detail to get right... It's not unusual to want or need to mount the original and copy drive in the same machine. If you've cloned the GPT, that's not going to happen. Have you ever tried to move a Windows Vista partition? There are quite a few subtleties & 'gotchas'. I spent around a month, near full-time, on this problem several years ago and bounced off it. I've a whole bunch of experience with FAT, NTFS, Unix, Linux, multiple LVM systems filesystems, disk-arrays or not, and their supporting disk partitioning, but I couldn't get this to work... I've dug people out of seemingly impossible situations many times, but I didn't crack that one - nor had anyone else from what I was reading on the web at the time. It's trivial to clone/migrate & resize an NTFS partition with Win-XP and below, but Vista had a few too many checks. Doesn't play well with 'grub', either. erik quanstrom wrote on 2/10/11 12:28 PM: > really? > > what do you mean by "doesn't allow for hardware changes"? > i > also, i'm pretty sure that whenever the new disk is larger > than the end of the last used partition, both fdisk and prep > just see more empty space at the end of the partition. judging > from the spec, gpt should work the same way. where do you > see cloning onto a larger disk failing? > > cloning a disk is really common for nas appliances, and it's > not too hard to make your storage whatever size you require. > > most advanced storage features of vmware work by cloning > storage. i see the the idea of cloning disks becoming more > prevalent. > > - erik > -- Steve Jenkin, Info Tech, Systems and Design Specialist. 0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915) PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA stevej098@gmail.com http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-10-02 2:28 ` steve jenkin @ 2011-10-02 2:37 ` erik quanstrom 2011-10-02 3:07 ` steve jenkin 0 siblings, 1 reply; 35+ messages in thread From: erik quanstrom @ 2011-10-02 2:37 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans > You are right that cloning disk *images* is an essential part of > using/managing VM's. > Don't conflate that with cloning physical disks. why not? this reminds me of the mem "$x ... with a computer". i think we've gotten to the point where we keep hearing "$x ... with v12n". and why make such a big distinction between das and nas. it's all block storage. depending on exactly where your bits are stored seems so vms-y. - erik ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-10-02 2:37 ` erik quanstrom @ 2011-10-02 3:07 ` steve jenkin 2011-10-02 12:38 ` Iruatã Souza 2011-10-02 13:30 ` Salman Aljammaz 0 siblings, 2 replies; 35+ messages in thread From: steve jenkin @ 2011-10-02 3:07 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs erik quanstrom wrote on 2/10/11 1:37 PM: > it's all block storage. > Nope. In the same way that RAM is finely differentiated with many incompatibilities & 'gotchas'. It's not "all memory". Go away and actually *do* the thing you are suggesting, then tell us how you went. Get 3-4 macbooks. Preferably a range of machines: old to new. Get 8-12 replacement drives, differing ages, capacities and types. Do your "just pull the drive out and copy it" multiple times on each machine. To be valid, you have to swap drives between machines and have then work properly. No cheating, fully reconstruct machines between tests. Wearing out screws/fittings is a classic weakness on single-assembly designs. Quicker solution: point us to a web-page where your suggestion is done, even once. Bonus for a webpage where someone does exactly what you're suggesting, multiple machines, many drive types. -- Steve Jenkin, Info Tech, Systems and Design Specialist. 0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915) PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA stevej098@gmail.com http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-10-02 3:07 ` steve jenkin @ 2011-10-02 12:38 ` Iruatã Souza 2011-10-03 3:57 ` steve jenkin 2011-10-02 13:30 ` Salman Aljammaz 1 sibling, 1 reply; 35+ messages in thread From: Iruatã Souza @ 2011-10-02 12:38 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs On Sun, Oct 2, 2011 at 12:07 AM, steve jenkin <stevej098@gmail.com> wrote: > erik quanstrom wrote on 2/10/11 1:37 PM: >> it's all block storage. >> > > Nope. > In the same way that RAM is finely differentiated with many > incompatibilities & 'gotchas'. > It's not "all memory". > > Go away and actually *do* the thing you are suggesting, then tell us how > you went. > > Get 3-4 macbooks. Preferably a range of machines: old to new. > Get 8-12 replacement drives, differing ages, capacities and types. > > Do your "just pull the drive out and copy it" multiple times on each > machine. > To be valid, you have to swap drives between machines and have then work > properly. > No cheating, fully reconstruct machines between tests. > Wearing out screws/fittings is a classic weakness on single-assembly > designs. > > Quicker solution: > point us to a web-page where your suggestion is done, even once. > Bonus for a webpage where someone does exactly what you're suggesting, > multiple machines, many drive types. > > -- > Steve Jenkin, Info Tech, Systems and Design Specialist. > 0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915) > PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA > > stevej098@gmail.com http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin > > > you know so much, and yet you failed to read that this is not a mac list. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-10-02 12:38 ` Iruatã Souza @ 2011-10-03 3:57 ` steve jenkin 2011-10-03 4:02 ` erik quanstrom 0 siblings, 1 reply; 35+ messages in thread From: steve jenkin @ 2011-10-03 3:57 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans Iruatã Souza wrote on 2/10/11 11:38 PM: > you know so much, and yet you failed to read that this is not a mac list. > > and yet this is a rather rude, unhelpful list. 1. the subject line is "Off Topic". That's a clue. 2. I didn't start the thread. I responded to it. 3. The lack of any real technical detail/discussion is disturbing. Like your response. It's a snide, cowardly attack on someone you've never met, someone you know nothing about. If this is something you'd do in the real world, you'd quickly be a social pariah, if not beaten to within an inch of your life. In no way is your response helpful nor useful in moving the topic forward. If you actually felt I was disrupting the list, you'd had written to me off-line, not on-list. And included a suggestion as to what *would* be appropriate conversationally and acceptable on list. But you want to strut your stuff in front of an adoring crowd and show what a clever little person you are. The fact I've seen no responses about your comment, tells me one of two things: - nobody takes any notice of you, or - this is 'business as usual' for the list and accepted behaviour. ie. the list is dysfunctional. Good luck with whatever you do. -- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-10-03 3:57 ` steve jenkin @ 2011-10-03 4:02 ` erik quanstrom 0 siblings, 0 replies; 35+ messages in thread From: erik quanstrom @ 2011-10-03 4:02 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans On Sun Oct 2 23:58:29 EDT 2011, stevej098@gmail.com wrote: > Iruatã Souza wrote on 2/10/11 11:38 PM: > > you know so much, and yet you failed to read that this is not a mac list. > > > > > and yet this is a rather rude, unhelpful list. > > 1. the subject line is "Off Topic". That's a clue. > > 2. I didn't start the thread. I responded to it. > > 3. The lack of any real technical detail/discussion is disturbing. > > Like your response. > It's a snide, cowardly attack on someone you've never met, someone you > know nothing about. > If this is something you'd do in the real world, you'd quickly be a > social pariah, if not beaten to within an inch of your life. relax man, iruatã''s good people. you might not like what he said one time, but let's not overgeneralize. by the way, this whole discussion is my fault. you can blame me. (you might have to take a number.) - erik ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-10-02 3:07 ` steve jenkin 2011-10-02 12:38 ` Iruatã Souza @ 2011-10-02 13:30 ` Salman Aljammaz 2011-10-03 3:47 ` steve jenkin 1 sibling, 1 reply; 35+ messages in thread From: Salman Aljammaz @ 2011-10-02 13:30 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs On Sun, Oct 2, 2011 at 4:07 AM, steve jenkin <stevej098@gmail.com> wrote: > erik quanstrom wrote on 2/10/11 1:37 PM: >> it's all block storage. >> > > Nope. > In the same way that RAM is finely differentiated with many > incompatibilities & 'gotchas'. > It's not "all memory". > > Go away and actually *do* the thing you are suggesting, then tell us how > you went. > > Get 3-4 macbooks. Preferably a range of machines: old to new. > Get 8-12 replacement drives, differing ages, capacities and types. my mac's old hard drive, with os x and all my data, has been through 3 macbook(pro)s without a single os x reinstall. recently i dd'd it into an ssd which replaced it with no issue. i don't recommend this or anything; but i have on a couple of occasions yanked the drive out of the mac and into a machine with more storage and dd'd it as a backup (or is it archive?) i only restored from these images once, but it worked. unless the interface is physically incompatible with your machine, i don't see the problem. salman ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? 2011-10-02 13:30 ` Salman Aljammaz @ 2011-10-03 3:47 ` steve jenkin 0 siblings, 0 replies; 35+ messages in thread From: steve jenkin @ 2011-10-03 3:47 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs Salman Aljammaz wrote on 3/10/11 12:30 AM: > my mac's old hard drive, with os x and all my data, has been through 3 > macbook(pro)s without a single os x reinstall. recently i dd'd it > into an ssd which replaced it with no issue. > > unless the interface is physically incompatible with your machine, i > don't see the problem. > > salman > > Nice to know. -- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 35+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2011-11-03 20:57 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 35+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2011-09-30 15:19 [9fans] OT: how do 9fans backup their Mac(book)? Axel Belinfante 2011-09-30 15:53 ` Anthony Sorace 2011-09-30 17:43 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) 2011-09-30 17:59 ` erik quanstrom 2011-09-30 19:21 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) 2011-09-30 19:42 ` erik quanstrom 2011-09-30 19:45 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) 2011-09-30 19:53 ` erik quanstrom 2011-10-01 8:21 ` Anthony Sorace 2011-10-01 15:14 ` Ethan Grammatikidis 2011-10-01 15:24 ` erik quanstrom 2011-10-01 15:48 ` Ethan Grammatikidis 2011-10-01 16:49 ` Venkatesh Srinivas 2011-10-01 18:21 ` Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) 2011-10-01 18:29 ` Anthony Sorace 2011-10-02 15:26 ` Ethan Grammatikidis 2011-11-03 20:54 ` Michaelian Ennis [not found] ` <CAAQydVjZ42C-GTEFT7E2t=dCQ35fvHzqjSYx9a3o+8v+5D1vfA@mail.gmail.c> 2011-11-03 20:57 ` erik quanstrom 2011-11-01 18:15 ` smiley 2011-11-01 18:57 ` Anthony Sorace 2011-09-30 19:50 ` Latchesar Ionkov 2011-10-01 15:21 ` Ethan Grammatikidis 2011-09-30 20:01 ` Francisco J Ballesteros 2011-09-30 21:15 ` Bakul Shah 2011-10-01 17:22 ` John Stalker 2011-10-02 0:35 ` steve jenkin 2011-10-02 1:28 ` erik quanstrom 2011-10-02 2:28 ` steve jenkin 2011-10-02 2:37 ` erik quanstrom 2011-10-02 3:07 ` steve jenkin 2011-10-02 12:38 ` Iruatã Souza 2011-10-03 3:57 ` steve jenkin 2011-10-03 4:02 ` erik quanstrom 2011-10-02 13:30 ` Salman Aljammaz 2011-10-03 3:47 ` steve jenkin
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