I think that I finally have my backup scheme worked out. My server meltdown had me re-think the strategy. However, my meltdown, while time consuming to get everything working again, really only cost me one day’s worth of data that I was able to restore from another machine. My backups sort of worked, except for the monolithic “dump” archive that I created. This archive got corrupted and caused the restore to fail. Luckily I had created tar/gzipped backups and had the files.
So my new backup strategy is quite involved. First off, I have 2 drives doing RAID 1 which will protect against hard drive failure (I hope). Next, I have a third drive in my server that every hour does an rsync of the main drive. Next, I every night, a nightly rsync is done of the main drive to the third drive. Next, I have a TrayDock that I do an rsync to every few days. Then I take the dock to my safe deposit box. I have a second tray for it and rotate those backups. I also do nightly tar/gzipped backups of important stuff to the third drive which then get copied to the TrayDocks. Lastly, I periodically copy the tar/gzipped archives to a TrayDock attached to my PowerBook (I have 2 trays for my PowerBook).
I think that I should be covered in terms of backups. While there is still the potential for downtime, I’ll sleep better knowing that I can restore any one file or files without having to rely on a massive dump file still working. Yes, I may be paranoid, but my livelihood depends on data on my server.