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How to undelete files on a ext4 partition

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  How to undelete files on a ext4 partition lucie <lucie3d@gmail.com> - 2011-07-05 05:07 -0700
    Re: How to undelete files on a ext4 partition gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2011-07-05 12:22 +0000
      Re: How to undelete files on a ext4 partition Jean-David Beyer <jeandavid8@verizon.net> - 2011-07-05 09:24 -0400
        Re: How to undelete files on a ext4 partition Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2011-07-05 09:10 -0500
        Re: How to undelete files on a ext4 partition David Brown <david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com> - 2011-07-05 16:47 +0200
          Re: How to undelete files on a ext4 partition Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2011-07-05 10:29 -0500
            Re: How to undelete files on a ext4 partition David Brown <david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com> - 2011-07-05 22:01 +0200
              Re: How to undelete files on a ext4 partition Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2011-07-05 16:35 -0500
              Re: How to undelete files on a ext4 partition unruh <unruh@wormhole.physics.ubc.ca> - 2011-07-06 01:21 +0000
                Re: How to undelete files on a ext4 partition Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2011-07-06 06:46 -0500
                  Re: How to undelete files on a ext4 partition unruh <unruh@wormhole.physics.ubc.ca> - 2011-07-06 12:09 +0000
                    Re: How to undelete files on a ext4 partition Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2011-07-06 09:03 -0500
        Re: How to undelete files on a ext4 partition John Stumbles <john.stumbles@ntlworld.com> - 2011-07-06 07:51 +0000
    Re: How to undelete files on a ext4 partition John Reiser <jreiserfl@comcast.net> - 2011-07-05 17:19 -0700

#1589 — How to undelete files on a ext4 partition

Hi,

I just ran this command:
$ find -type f -size +2G -exec mv '{}' target ';'

Then I realized that the /target/  directory didn't exist.
So what I just did is:
mv file1 target
mv file2 target
[..]
mv fileN target

So I just lost the N-1 first files and renamed the last file `target`

Is there a way to get my files back?

Thanks!

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#1590

In article <b9244db2-b55e-4b9c-ba1f-e4c99381eaca@q1g2000vbj.googlegroups.com>,
lucie  <lucie3d@gmail.com> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I just ran this command:
>$ find -type f -size +2G -exec mv '{}' target ';'
>
>Then I realized that the /target/  directory didn't exist.
>So what I just did is:
>mv file1 target
>mv file2 target
>[..]
>mv fileN target
>
>So I just lost the N-1 first files and renamed the last file `target`
>
>Is there a way to get my files back?
>
>Thanks!

Talk to your system administrator.  He should have access to this morning's
backup tapes.

-- 
But the Bush apologists hope that you won't remember all that. And they
also have a theory, which I've been hearing more and more - namely,
that President Obama, though not yet in office or even elected, caused the
2008 slump. You see, people were worried in advance about his future
policies, and that's what caused the economy to tank. Seriously.

    (Paul Krugman - Addicted to Bush)

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#1591

Kenny McCormack wrote:

> Talk to your system administrator.  He should have access to this morning's
> backup tapes.
> 
For the first time in many years, I removed all my files. I.e., I did
this in my home directory:

rm -fr frammis *

instead of

rm -fr frammis*

About a week before I did that, my tape drive (a VXA-2) quit, and I
ordered a new one. It came in and I installed it two days before I
screwed up as above, so I had little difficulty restoring the files.

Now the question is: I have been using VXA drives since Ecrix started
making them. Then they were bought out by Exabyte, who have now been
bought out by Tandberg. Do you suppose people will be using tape for
backups in sufficient quantities that manufacturers will continue to
make the drives? So in another 7 years (that seems to be about how long
one of those drives lasts), I fear I will not be able to get a tape
drive like that anymore. I do not know the market research, but I assume
fewer and fewer people use tape for backups these days.

I infer that most people do not do backups at all, that some make
partial backups once in a while to CD-ROM or DVD-ROM disks. But I prefer
to do total backups, because whatever I leave out will be what I need to
restore.

Some people have hot swappable hard drives for backup, but that seems
expensive to me. I currently use 6 tapes for daily backups (Monday,
Tuesday...), 5 tapes for weekly backups (First Sunday, Second...), and
12 tapes for monthly backups (January, ...). Now 23 hot swappable hard
drives would be too expensive, and they would not fit in my safe deposit
box. So what do people who take backups seriously propose to do going
forward.

-- 
  .~.  Jean-David Beyer          Registered Linux User 85642.
  /V\  PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A         Registered Machine   241939.
 /( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey    http://counter.li.org
 ^^-^^ 08:30:01 up 6 days, 11:17, 3 users, load average: 4.49, 4.63, 4.68

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#1592

At Tue, 05 Jul 2011 09:24:33 -0400 Jean-David Beyer <jeandavid8@verizon.net> wrote:

> 
> Kenny McCormack wrote:
> 
> > Talk to your system administrator.  He should have access to this morning's
> > backup tapes.
> > 
> For the first time in many years, I removed all my files. I.e., I did
> this in my home directory:
> 
> rm -fr frammis *
> 
> instead of
> 
> rm -fr frammis*
> 
> About a week before I did that, my tape drive (a VXA-2) quit, and I
> ordered a new one. It came in and I installed it two days before I
> screwed up as above, so I had little difficulty restoring the files.
> 
> Now the question is: I have been using VXA drives since Ecrix started
> making them. Then they were bought out by Exabyte, who have now been
> bought out by Tandberg. Do you suppose people will be using tape for
> backups in sufficient quantities that manufacturers will continue to
> make the drives? So in another 7 years (that seems to be about how long
> one of those drives lasts), I fear I will not be able to get a tape
> drive like that anymore. I do not know the market research, but I assume
> fewer and fewer people use tape for backups these days.
> 
> I infer that most people do not do backups at all, that some make
> partial backups once in a while to CD-ROM or DVD-ROM disks. But I prefer
> to do total backups, because whatever I leave out will be what I need to
> restore.
> 
> Some people have hot swappable hard drives for backup, but that seems
> expensive to me. I currently use 6 tapes for daily backups (Monday,
> Tuesday...), 5 tapes for weekly backups (First Sunday, Second...), and
> 12 tapes for monthly backups (January, ...). Now 23 hot swappable hard
> drives would be too expensive, and they would not fit in my safe deposit
> box. So what do people who take backups seriously propose to do going
> forward.

What *I* do is make backups to disks and then make archival copies of
the monthly fulls to DVDs: both on my home system (I have three 160G
2.5" SATA disks in a hot swap bay -- two are my system disk, organized
as a pair of RAID1 arrays, and the third is my backup disk, organized
as a virtual tape changer) and on the Wendell Free Library (4 internal
SATA disks organized as various RAID arrays: some RAID1, one RAID5) +
an external USB disk to hold backups, also as a virtual tape changer)
-- I use the Amanda package to automate the process -- I do monthly
fulls and daily incrementals.  The backups are compressed.  Some people
just do backups to disk and use removable disk media -- Dell sells a SATA
'cartridge' disk thing -- I guess it is like a glorified Zip or Jazz
drive, but far higher capacity (160G (320G compressed) and up).

> 

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933 / heller@deepsoft.com
Deepwoods Software        -- http://www.deepsoft.com/
()  ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail
/\  www.asciiribbon.org   -- against proprietary attachments


                               

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#1593

On 05/07/2011 15:24, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
> Kenny McCormack wrote:
>
>> Talk to your system administrator.  He should have access to this morning's
>> backup tapes.
>>
> For the first time in many years, I removed all my files. I.e., I did
> this in my home directory:
>
> rm -fr frammis *
>
> instead of
>
> rm -fr frammis*
>
> About a week before I did that, my tape drive (a VXA-2) quit, and I
> ordered a new one. It came in and I installed it two days before I
> screwed up as above, so I had little difficulty restoring the files.
>
> Now the question is: I have been using VXA drives since Ecrix started
> making them. Then they were bought out by Exabyte, who have now been
> bought out by Tandberg. Do you suppose people will be using tape for
> backups in sufficient quantities that manufacturers will continue to
> make the drives? So in another 7 years (that seems to be about how long
> one of those drives lasts), I fear I will not be able to get a tape
> drive like that anymore. I do not know the market research, but I assume
> fewer and fewer people use tape for backups these days.
>
> I infer that most people do not do backups at all, that some make
> partial backups once in a while to CD-ROM or DVD-ROM disks. But I prefer
> to do total backups, because whatever I leave out will be what I need to
> restore.
>
> Some people have hot swappable hard drives for backup, but that seems
> expensive to me. I currently use 6 tapes for daily backups (Monday,
> Tuesday...), 5 tapes for weekly backups (First Sunday, Second...), and
> 12 tapes for monthly backups (January, ...). Now 23 hot swappable hard
> drives would be too expensive, and they would not fit in my safe deposit
> box. So what do people who take backups seriously propose to do going
> forward.
>

You don't need hot-swap hard drives for backups.  You need a raid set so 
that you won't be upset by a disk failure.  You need some sort of 
snapshot system to have multiple snapshots without it needing huge 
amounts of disk space and backup time (rsync is your friend here).  Then 
you need the setup duplicated so that it will survive a serious fault 
(hardware, software, user) - preferably off-site (for fire and theft 
protection).

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#1595

At Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:47:18 +0200 David Brown <david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com> wrote:

> 
> On 05/07/2011 15:24, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
> > Kenny McCormack wrote:
> >
> >> Talk to your system administrator.  He should have access to this morning's
> >> backup tapes.
> >>
> > For the first time in many years, I removed all my files. I.e., I did
> > this in my home directory:
> >
> > rm -fr frammis *
> >
> > instead of
> >
> > rm -fr frammis*
> >
> > About a week before I did that, my tape drive (a VXA-2) quit, and I
> > ordered a new one. It came in and I installed it two days before I
> > screwed up as above, so I had little difficulty restoring the files.
> >
> > Now the question is: I have been using VXA drives since Ecrix started
> > making them. Then they were bought out by Exabyte, who have now been
> > bought out by Tandberg. Do you suppose people will be using tape for
> > backups in sufficient quantities that manufacturers will continue to
> > make the drives? So in another 7 years (that seems to be about how long
> > one of those drives lasts), I fear I will not be able to get a tape
> > drive like that anymore. I do not know the market research, but I assume
> > fewer and fewer people use tape for backups these days.
> >
> > I infer that most people do not do backups at all, that some make
> > partial backups once in a while to CD-ROM or DVD-ROM disks. But I prefer
> > to do total backups, because whatever I leave out will be what I need to
> > restore.
> >
> > Some people have hot swappable hard drives for backup, but that seems
> > expensive to me. I currently use 6 tapes for daily backups (Monday,
> > Tuesday...), 5 tapes for weekly backups (First Sunday, Second...), and
> > 12 tapes for monthly backups (January, ...). Now 23 hot swappable hard
> > drives would be too expensive, and they would not fit in my safe deposit
> > box. So what do people who take backups seriously propose to do going
> > forward.
> >
> 
> You don't need hot-swap hard drives for backups.  You need a raid set so 
> that you won't be upset by a disk failure.  You need some sort of 
> snapshot system to have multiple snapshots without it needing huge 
> amounts of disk space and backup time (rsync is your friend here).  Then 
> you need the setup duplicated so that it will survive a serious fault 
> (hardware, software, user) - preferably off-site (for fire and theft 
> protection).

Having 1 or 2 hot swappable hard drives might make sense.  With modern
SATA controllers (many of which are AHCI compliant), *any* random SATA
disk (even laptop ones!) are suitable as hot swapable.  There are
numerious SATA hot swap bays available, some fairly cheap (I have one
that cost less than US$50 that holds four 2.5" [laptop] drives and fits
in a single 1/2 height 5.25" bay [eg where a CD-ROM/DVD-ROM would fit]).

> 
> 
>                                                                            

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933 / heller@deepsoft.com
Deepwoods Software        -- http://www.deepsoft.com/
()  ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail
/\  www.asciiribbon.org   -- against proprietary attachments


                                                                                                             

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#1607

On 05/07/2011 17:29, Robert Heller wrote:
> At Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:47:18 +0200 David Brown<david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com>  wrote:
>
>>
>> On 05/07/2011 15:24, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
>>> Kenny McCormack wrote:
>>>
>>>> Talk to your system administrator.  He should have access to this morning's
>>>> backup tapes.
>>>>
>>> For the first time in many years, I removed all my files. I.e., I did
>>> this in my home directory:
>>>
>>> rm -fr frammis *
>>>
>>> instead of
>>>
>>> rm -fr frammis*
>>>
>>> About a week before I did that, my tape drive (a VXA-2) quit, and I
>>> ordered a new one. It came in and I installed it two days before I
>>> screwed up as above, so I had little difficulty restoring the files.
>>>
>>> Now the question is: I have been using VXA drives since Ecrix started
>>> making them. Then they were bought out by Exabyte, who have now been
>>> bought out by Tandberg. Do you suppose people will be using tape for
>>> backups in sufficient quantities that manufacturers will continue to
>>> make the drives? So in another 7 years (that seems to be about how long
>>> one of those drives lasts), I fear I will not be able to get a tape
>>> drive like that anymore. I do not know the market research, but I assume
>>> fewer and fewer people use tape for backups these days.
>>>
>>> I infer that most people do not do backups at all, that some make
>>> partial backups once in a while to CD-ROM or DVD-ROM disks. But I prefer
>>> to do total backups, because whatever I leave out will be what I need to
>>> restore.
>>>
>>> Some people have hot swappable hard drives for backup, but that seems
>>> expensive to me. I currently use 6 tapes for daily backups (Monday,
>>> Tuesday...), 5 tapes for weekly backups (First Sunday, Second...), and
>>> 12 tapes for monthly backups (January, ...). Now 23 hot swappable hard
>>> drives would be too expensive, and they would not fit in my safe deposit
>>> box. So what do people who take backups seriously propose to do going
>>> forward.
>>>
>>
>> You don't need hot-swap hard drives for backups.  You need a raid set so
>> that you won't be upset by a disk failure.  You need some sort of
>> snapshot system to have multiple snapshots without it needing huge
>> amounts of disk space and backup time (rsync is your friend here).  Then
>> you need the setup duplicated so that it will survive a serious fault
>> (hardware, software, user) - preferably off-site (for fire and theft
>> protection).
>
> Having 1 or 2 hot swappable hard drives might make sense.  With modern
> SATA controllers (many of which are AHCI compliant), *any* random SATA
> disk (even laptop ones!) are suitable as hot swapable.  There are
> numerious SATA hot swap bays available, some fairly cheap (I have one
> that cost less than US$50 that holds four 2.5" [laptop] drives and fits
> in a single 1/2 height 5.25" bay [eg where a CD-ROM/DVD-ROM would fit]).
>

Hot-swapping SATA is certainly easy - I have an external hot-swap bay 
myself.  But backups are even easier if you don't have to hot-swap. 
(Although to be fair, hot-swapping your disks and moving them physically 
is a lot cheaper than having a separate backup machine off-site - a good 
solution has to match an appropriate budget!)

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#1608

At Tue, 05 Jul 2011 22:01:10 +0200 David Brown <david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com> wrote:

> 
> On 05/07/2011 17:29, Robert Heller wrote:
> > At Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:47:18 +0200 David Brown<david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com>  wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> On 05/07/2011 15:24, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
> >>> Kenny McCormack wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Talk to your system administrator.  He should have access to this morning's
> >>>> backup tapes.
> >>>>
> >>> For the first time in many years, I removed all my files. I.e., I did
> >>> this in my home directory:
> >>>
> >>> rm -fr frammis *
> >>>
> >>> instead of
> >>>
> >>> rm -fr frammis*
> >>>
> >>> About a week before I did that, my tape drive (a VXA-2) quit, and I
> >>> ordered a new one. It came in and I installed it two days before I
> >>> screwed up as above, so I had little difficulty restoring the files.
> >>>
> >>> Now the question is: I have been using VXA drives since Ecrix started
> >>> making them. Then they were bought out by Exabyte, who have now been
> >>> bought out by Tandberg. Do you suppose people will be using tape for
> >>> backups in sufficient quantities that manufacturers will continue to
> >>> make the drives? So in another 7 years (that seems to be about how long
> >>> one of those drives lasts), I fear I will not be able to get a tape
> >>> drive like that anymore. I do not know the market research, but I assume
> >>> fewer and fewer people use tape for backups these days.
> >>>
> >>> I infer that most people do not do backups at all, that some make
> >>> partial backups once in a while to CD-ROM or DVD-ROM disks. But I prefer
> >>> to do total backups, because whatever I leave out will be what I need to
> >>> restore.
> >>>
> >>> Some people have hot swappable hard drives for backup, but that seems
> >>> expensive to me. I currently use 6 tapes for daily backups (Monday,
> >>> Tuesday...), 5 tapes for weekly backups (First Sunday, Second...), and
> >>> 12 tapes for monthly backups (January, ...). Now 23 hot swappable hard
> >>> drives would be too expensive, and they would not fit in my safe deposit
> >>> box. So what do people who take backups seriously propose to do going
> >>> forward.
> >>>
> >>
> >> You don't need hot-swap hard drives for backups.  You need a raid set so
> >> that you won't be upset by a disk failure.  You need some sort of
> >> snapshot system to have multiple snapshots without it needing huge
> >> amounts of disk space and backup time (rsync is your friend here).  Then
> >> you need the setup duplicated so that it will survive a serious fault
> >> (hardware, software, user) - preferably off-site (for fire and theft
> >> protection).
> >
> > Having 1 or 2 hot swappable hard drives might make sense.  With modern
> > SATA controllers (many of which are AHCI compliant), *any* random SATA
> > disk (even laptop ones!) are suitable as hot swapable.  There are
> > numerious SATA hot swap bays available, some fairly cheap (I have one
> > that cost less than US$50 that holds four 2.5" [laptop] drives and fits
> > in a single 1/2 height 5.25" bay [eg where a CD-ROM/DVD-ROM would fit]).
> >
> 
> Hot-swapping SATA is certainly easy - I have an external hot-swap bay 
> myself.  But backups are even easier if you don't have to hot-swap. 
> (Although to be fair, hot-swapping your disks and moving them physically 
> is a lot cheaper than having a separate backup machine off-site - a good 
> solution has to match an appropriate budget!)

And 2.5" laptop drives are small and rugged and not esp. expensive. 
This could be a good fit for some situations.

> 
>                                                           

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933 / heller@deepsoft.com
Deepwoods Software        -- http://www.deepsoft.com/
()  ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail
/\  www.asciiribbon.org   -- against proprietary attachments


                                                 

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#1613

On 2011-07-05, David Brown <david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com> wrote:
> On 05/07/2011 17:29, Robert Heller wrote:
>> At Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:47:18 +0200 David Brown<david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com>  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On 05/07/2011 15:24, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
>>>> Kenny McCormack wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Talk to your system administrator.  He should have access to this morning's
>>>>> backup tapes.
>>>>>
>>>> For the first time in many years, I removed all my files. I.e., I did
>>>> this in my home directory:
>>>>
>>>> rm -fr frammis *
>>>>
>>>> instead of
>>>>
>>>> rm -fr frammis*
>>>>
>>>> About a week before I did that, my tape drive (a VXA-2) quit, and I
>>>> ordered a new one. It came in and I installed it two days before I
>>>> screwed up as above, so I had little difficulty restoring the files.
>>>>
>>>> Now the question is: I have been using VXA drives since Ecrix started
>>>> making them. Then they were bought out by Exabyte, who have now been
>>>> bought out by Tandberg. Do you suppose people will be using tape for
>>>> backups in sufficient quantities that manufacturers will continue to
>>>> make the drives? So in another 7 years (that seems to be about how long
>>>> one of those drives lasts), I fear I will not be able to get a tape
>>>> drive like that anymore. I do not know the market research, but I assume
>>>> fewer and fewer people use tape for backups these days.
>>>>
>>>> I infer that most people do not do backups at all, that some make
>>>> partial backups once in a while to CD-ROM or DVD-ROM disks. But I prefer
>>>> to do total backups, because whatever I leave out will be what I need to
>>>> restore.
>>>>
>>>> Some people have hot swappable hard drives for backup, but that seems
>>>> expensive to me. I currently use 6 tapes for daily backups (Monday,
>>>> Tuesday...), 5 tapes for weekly backups (First Sunday, Second...), and
>>>> 12 tapes for monthly backups (January, ...). Now 23 hot swappable hard
>>>> drives would be too expensive, and they would not fit in my safe deposit
>>>> box. So what do people who take backups seriously propose to do going
>>>> forward.
>>>>
>>>
>>> You don't need hot-swap hard drives for backups.  You need a raid set so
>>> that you won't be upset by a disk failure.  You need some sort of
>>> snapshot system to have multiple snapshots without it needing huge
>>> amounts of disk space and backup time (rsync is your friend here).  Then
>>> you need the setup duplicated so that it will survive a serious fault
>>> (hardware, software, user) - preferably off-site (for fire and theft
>>> protection).
>>
>> Having 1 or 2 hot swappable hard drives might make sense.  With modern
>> SATA controllers (many of which are AHCI compliant), *any* random SATA
>> disk (even laptop ones!) are suitable as hot swapable.  There are
>> numerious SATA hot swap bays available, some fairly cheap (I have one
>> that cost less than US$50 that holds four 2.5" [laptop] drives and fits
>> in a single 1/2 height 5.25" bay [eg where a CD-ROM/DVD-ROM would fit]).
>>
>
> Hot-swapping SATA is certainly easy - I have an external hot-swap bay 
> myself.  But backups are even easier if you don't have to hot-swap. 
> (Although to be fair, hot-swapping your disks and moving them physically 
> is a lot cheaper than having a separate backup machine off-site - a good 
> solution has to match an appropriate budget!)
>

Except of course that if you have lug around your disks, you will get
lazy and forget-- both to lug them around and to make backups. 

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#1622

At Wed, 06 Jul 2011 01:21:18 GMT unruh <unruh@wormhole.physics.ubc.ca> wrote:

> 
> On 2011-07-05, David Brown <david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com> wrote:
> > On 05/07/2011 17:29, Robert Heller wrote:
> >> At Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:47:18 +0200 David Brown<david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com>  wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>> On 05/07/2011 15:24, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
> >>>> Kenny McCormack wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Talk to your system administrator.  He should have access to this morning's
> >>>>> backup tapes.
> >>>>>
> >>>> For the first time in many years, I removed all my files. I.e., I did
> >>>> this in my home directory:
> >>>>
> >>>> rm -fr frammis *
> >>>>
> >>>> instead of
> >>>>
> >>>> rm -fr frammis*
> >>>>
> >>>> About a week before I did that, my tape drive (a VXA-2) quit, and I
> >>>> ordered a new one. It came in and I installed it two days before I
> >>>> screwed up as above, so I had little difficulty restoring the files.
> >>>>
> >>>> Now the question is: I have been using VXA drives since Ecrix started
> >>>> making them. Then they were bought out by Exabyte, who have now been
> >>>> bought out by Tandberg. Do you suppose people will be using tape for
> >>>> backups in sufficient quantities that manufacturers will continue to
> >>>> make the drives? So in another 7 years (that seems to be about how long
> >>>> one of those drives lasts), I fear I will not be able to get a tape
> >>>> drive like that anymore. I do not know the market research, but I assume
> >>>> fewer and fewer people use tape for backups these days.
> >>>>
> >>>> I infer that most people do not do backups at all, that some make
> >>>> partial backups once in a while to CD-ROM or DVD-ROM disks. But I prefer
> >>>> to do total backups, because whatever I leave out will be what I need to
> >>>> restore.
> >>>>
> >>>> Some people have hot swappable hard drives for backup, but that seems
> >>>> expensive to me. I currently use 6 tapes for daily backups (Monday,
> >>>> Tuesday...), 5 tapes for weekly backups (First Sunday, Second...), and
> >>>> 12 tapes for monthly backups (January, ...). Now 23 hot swappable hard
> >>>> drives would be too expensive, and they would not fit in my safe deposit
> >>>> box. So what do people who take backups seriously propose to do going
> >>>> forward.
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> You don't need hot-swap hard drives for backups.  You need a raid set so
> >>> that you won't be upset by a disk failure.  You need some sort of
> >>> snapshot system to have multiple snapshots without it needing huge
> >>> amounts of disk space and backup time (rsync is your friend here).  Then
> >>> you need the setup duplicated so that it will survive a serious fault
> >>> (hardware, software, user) - preferably off-site (for fire and theft
> >>> protection).
> >>
> >> Having 1 or 2 hot swappable hard drives might make sense.  With modern
> >> SATA controllers (many of which are AHCI compliant), *any* random SATA
> >> disk (even laptop ones!) are suitable as hot swapable.  There are
> >> numerious SATA hot swap bays available, some fairly cheap (I have one
> >> that cost less than US$50 that holds four 2.5" [laptop] drives and fits
> >> in a single 1/2 height 5.25" bay [eg where a CD-ROM/DVD-ROM would fit]).
> >>
> >
> > Hot-swapping SATA is certainly easy - I have an external hot-swap bay 
> > myself.  But backups are even easier if you don't have to hot-swap. 
> > (Although to be fair, hot-swapping your disks and moving them physically 
> > is a lot cheaper than having a separate backup machine off-site - a good 
> > solution has to match an appropriate budget!)
> >
> 
> Except of course that if you have lug around your disks, you will get
> lazy and forget-- both to lug them around and to make backups. 

And this is different than "lugging around" your tapes or DVD-Rs
exactly how?  One can automate the backups (Amanda + cron can do that). 

> 
>            

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933 / heller@deepsoft.com
Deepwoods Software        -- http://www.deepsoft.com/
()  ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail
/\  www.asciiribbon.org   -- against proprietary attachments


                                                                                                                            

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#1623

On 2011-07-06, Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> wrote:
> At Wed, 06 Jul 2011 01:21:18 GMT unruh <unruh@wormhole.physics.ubc.ca> wrote:
>
>> 
>> On 2011-07-05, David Brown <david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com> wrote:
>> > On 05/07/2011 17:29, Robert Heller wrote:
>> >> At Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:47:18 +0200 David Brown<david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com>  wrote:
>> >>
>> >>>
>> >>> On 05/07/2011 15:24, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
>> >>>> Kenny McCormack wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>>> Talk to your system administrator.  He should have access to this morning's
>> >>>>> backup tapes.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>> For the first time in many years, I removed all my files. I.e., I did
>> >>>> this in my home directory:
>> >>>>
>> >>>> rm -fr frammis *
>> >>>>
>> >>>> instead of
>> >>>>
>> >>>> rm -fr frammis*
>> >>>>
>> >>>> About a week before I did that, my tape drive (a VXA-2) quit, and I
>> >>>> ordered a new one. It came in and I installed it two days before I
>> >>>> screwed up as above, so I had little difficulty restoring the files.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Now the question is: I have been using VXA drives since Ecrix started
>> >>>> making them. Then they were bought out by Exabyte, who have now been
>> >>>> bought out by Tandberg. Do you suppose people will be using tape for
>> >>>> backups in sufficient quantities that manufacturers will continue to
>> >>>> make the drives? So in another 7 years (that seems to be about how long
>> >>>> one of those drives lasts), I fear I will not be able to get a tape
>> >>>> drive like that anymore. I do not know the market research, but I assume
>> >>>> fewer and fewer people use tape for backups these days.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I infer that most people do not do backups at all, that some make
>> >>>> partial backups once in a while to CD-ROM or DVD-ROM disks. But I prefer
>> >>>> to do total backups, because whatever I leave out will be what I need to
>> >>>> restore.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Some people have hot swappable hard drives for backup, but that seems
>> >>>> expensive to me. I currently use 6 tapes for daily backups (Monday,
>> >>>> Tuesday...), 5 tapes for weekly backups (First Sunday, Second...), and
>> >>>> 12 tapes for monthly backups (January, ...). Now 23 hot swappable hard
>> >>>> drives would be too expensive, and they would not fit in my safe deposit
>> >>>> box. So what do people who take backups seriously propose to do going
>> >>>> forward.
>> >>>>
>> >>>
>> >>> You don't need hot-swap hard drives for backups.  You need a raid set so
>> >>> that you won't be upset by a disk failure.  You need some sort of
>> >>> snapshot system to have multiple snapshots without it needing huge
>> >>> amounts of disk space and backup time (rsync is your friend here).  Then
>> >>> you need the setup duplicated so that it will survive a serious fault
>> >>> (hardware, software, user) - preferably off-site (for fire and theft
>> >>> protection).
>> >>
>> >> Having 1 or 2 hot swappable hard drives might make sense.  With modern
>> >> SATA controllers (many of which are AHCI compliant), *any* random SATA
>> >> disk (even laptop ones!) are suitable as hot swapable.  There are
>> >> numerious SATA hot swap bays available, some fairly cheap (I have one
>> >> that cost less than US$50 that holds four 2.5" [laptop] drives and fits
>> >> in a single 1/2 height 5.25" bay [eg where a CD-ROM/DVD-ROM would fit]).
>> >>
>> >
>> > Hot-swapping SATA is certainly easy - I have an external hot-swap bay 
>> > myself.  But backups are even easier if you don't have to hot-swap. 
>> > (Although to be fair, hot-swapping your disks and moving them physically 
>> > is a lot cheaper than having a separate backup machine off-site - a good 
>> > solution has to match an appropriate budget!)
>> >
>> 
>> Except of course that if you have lug around your disks, you will get
>> lazy and forget-- both to lug them around and to make backups. 
>
> And this is different than "lugging around" your tapes or DVD-Rs
> exactly how?  One can automate the backups (Amanda + cron can do that). 


I (and he) was comparing an offsite computer containing the disk with a hot
swappable backup routine. I was not comparing it with tapes or dvds.

Except a hard drive is also bigger and heavier than either tapes or
disks if you want to make that comparison.
 
Amanda can do nothing if the disk is in the desk drawer at home. 
. 

>
>> 
>>            
>

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#1629

At Wed, 06 Jul 2011 12:09:34 GMT unruh <unruh@wormhole.physics.ubc.ca> wrote:

> 
> On 2011-07-06, Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> wrote:
> > At Wed, 06 Jul 2011 01:21:18 GMT unruh <unruh@wormhole.physics.ubc.ca> wrote:
> >
> >> 
> >> On 2011-07-05, David Brown <david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com> wrote:
> >> > On 05/07/2011 17:29, Robert Heller wrote:
> >> >> At Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:47:18 +0200 David Brown<david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com>  wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >>>
> >> >>> On 05/07/2011 15:24, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
> >> >>>> Kenny McCormack wrote:
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>>> Talk to your system administrator.  He should have access to this morning's
> >> >>>>> backup tapes.
> >> >>>>>
> >> >>>> For the first time in many years, I removed all my files. I.e., I did
> >> >>>> this in my home directory:
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> rm -fr frammis *
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> instead of
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> rm -fr frammis*
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> About a week before I did that, my tape drive (a VXA-2) quit, and I
> >> >>>> ordered a new one. It came in and I installed it two days before I
> >> >>>> screwed up as above, so I had little difficulty restoring the files.
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> Now the question is: I have been using VXA drives since Ecrix started
> >> >>>> making them. Then they were bought out by Exabyte, who have now been
> >> >>>> bought out by Tandberg. Do you suppose people will be using tape for
> >> >>>> backups in sufficient quantities that manufacturers will continue to
> >> >>>> make the drives? So in another 7 years (that seems to be about how long
> >> >>>> one of those drives lasts), I fear I will not be able to get a tape
> >> >>>> drive like that anymore. I do not know the market research, but I assume
> >> >>>> fewer and fewer people use tape for backups these days.
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> I infer that most people do not do backups at all, that some make
> >> >>>> partial backups once in a while to CD-ROM or DVD-ROM disks. But I prefer
> >> >>>> to do total backups, because whatever I leave out will be what I need to
> >> >>>> restore.
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> Some people have hot swappable hard drives for backup, but that seems
> >> >>>> expensive to me. I currently use 6 tapes for daily backups (Monday,
> >> >>>> Tuesday...), 5 tapes for weekly backups (First Sunday, Second...), and
> >> >>>> 12 tapes for monthly backups (January, ...). Now 23 hot swappable hard
> >> >>>> drives would be too expensive, and they would not fit in my safe deposit
> >> >>>> box. So what do people who take backups seriously propose to do going
> >> >>>> forward.
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>
> >> >>> You don't need hot-swap hard drives for backups.  You need a raid set so
> >> >>> that you won't be upset by a disk failure.  You need some sort of
> >> >>> snapshot system to have multiple snapshots without it needing huge
> >> >>> amounts of disk space and backup time (rsync is your friend here).  Then
> >> >>> you need the setup duplicated so that it will survive a serious fault
> >> >>> (hardware, software, user) - preferably off-site (for fire and theft
> >> >>> protection).
> >> >>
> >> >> Having 1 or 2 hot swappable hard drives might make sense.  With modern
> >> >> SATA controllers (many of which are AHCI compliant), *any* random SATA
> >> >> disk (even laptop ones!) are suitable as hot swapable.  There are
> >> >> numerious SATA hot swap bays available, some fairly cheap (I have one
> >> >> that cost less than US$50 that holds four 2.5" [laptop] drives and fits
> >> >> in a single 1/2 height 5.25" bay [eg where a CD-ROM/DVD-ROM would fit]).
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > Hot-swapping SATA is certainly easy - I have an external hot-swap bay 
> >> > myself.  But backups are even easier if you don't have to hot-swap. 
> >> > (Although to be fair, hot-swapping your disks and moving them physically 
> >> > is a lot cheaper than having a separate backup machine off-site - a good 
> >> > solution has to match an appropriate budget!)
> >> >
> >> 
> >> Except of course that if you have lug around your disks, you will get
> >> lazy and forget-- both to lug them around and to make backups. 
> >
> > And this is different than "lugging around" your tapes or DVD-Rs
> > exactly how?  One can automate the backups (Amanda + cron can do that). 
> 
> 
> I (and he) was comparing an offsite computer containing the disk with a hot
> swappable backup routine. I was not comparing it with tapes or dvds.
> 
> Except a hard drive is also bigger and heavier than either tapes or
> disks if you want to make that comparison.

A 160GB laptop drive is certainly smaller and lighter than 32 DVD-Rs...
(160/5 = 32).  And 160GB is actually rather 'small' for a laptop drive
these days...  Thin little 2.5" SATA laptop drives can be hot swapped
just like 'big heavy' 3.5" SATA drives and there do exist hot-swap bays
for 2.5" SATA laptop drives (one can get a 4 drive bay that fits in a
single 1/2 hight 5.25" bay -- the same space a DVD-ROM or CD-ROM drive
would fit in).

>  
> Amanda can do nothing if the disk is in the desk drawer at home. 

I would think that if one is using Amanda (or some other automatic
backup softwate) and hot-swapping one would *always* have a disk in the
system being automatically backed up to and would from time-to-time
(once a week? once a month?) 'swap' it with an archival disk / off-site
copy and would never leave the system without a disk to save automatic
backups onto.  That is, if one if pulling the backup disk for off-site
storage, one would *always* insert a replacement disk at the same time.
Anything else is just plain dumb.  (I understand that in the case of
casual and manual backups things might be different.)

> . 
> 
> >
> >> 
> >>            
> >
>                      

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933 / heller@deepsoft.com
Deepwoods Software        -- http://www.deepsoft.com/
()  ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail
/\  www.asciiribbon.org   -- against proprietary attachments


                                                                                                          

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#1617

On Tue, 05 Jul 2011 09:24:33 -0400, Jean-David Beyer wrote:

> I infer that most people do not do backups at all, that some make
> partial backups once in a while to CD-ROM or DVD-ROM disks. But I prefer
> to do total backups, because whatever I leave out will be what I need to
> restore.

Most people never made proper backups.

With the price of tape drives and tapes it's no wonder.

But with HDDs being cheap it's at least economically less painful to be 
able to make snapshot-type backups using hard links and rsync - either 
using the ready-rolled rsnapshot tool or a DIY equivalent. Mine has saved 
me anguish umpteen times already (e.g. stupid things like firefox on 
SWMBOs laptop arbitrarily deciding that I didn't want messages over 30 
days old in any of the folders I visited ... grrr!).

But I really should have the backups off-site from the main system :-|

-- 
John Stumbles

Procrastinate now!

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#1612

> Is there a way to get my files back?

Search the web for "ext3 undelete" (yes, ext-three) and look at the
page by Carlo Wood from March 2008.  Adapt for ext4.  The important
properties of superblock, inodes, the journal, etc., are the same;
the difference is accounting for blocks via extents versus block lists.

-- 

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