backup on a second hard disk

[Ronald Florence]

Some time ago I posted an inquiry about using a second hard disk as a
backup device.  I received the following replies by email:

Mike Anthis (anthis at sleepy.UUCP) recommended using dump and restore,
with some cautions about the need to "fool" dump about the capacity of
the "dump tape" (the second hard disk).

Don Molaro (molarod at vaxa.cpsc.UCalgary.CA) recommended using cpio with
find to backup a whole file system onto another whole filesystem
on a different drive.

Frank Bicknell (frankb at usource.UUCP) suggested mounting the second
disk filesystem as /mnt and using backup to dump the entire root and /u
filesystems onto files on the /mnt filesystem.  He also suggested
buying a DPT controller with the mirror module.

John Owens (john at jetson.UPMA.MD.US) suggested cpio -p, or a shell
script using tar.

Harol Tsitsivas (harol at unisol.UUCP) suggested cpio or dump, and pushed
the SysAdmin product from his company.

I have opted for cpio -p to copy the entire /u filesystem and portions
of the root filesystem onto /dev/archive.  Cpio -p to a mounted
filesystem may be less efficient than other backup schemes using the
disk as a raw device, but it can be run by cron in the wee hours,
leaves a mirror image (including special files) on the second disk,
and makes restoration of single files (people around here goof
occasionally) relatively simple.

My thanks to everyone who offered suggestions and advice.
-- 

Ronald Florence			...{hsi!aati,rayssd}!mlfarm!ron