[Discuss] Backing up LVM partitions using snapshots

[Richard Pieri]

Pretty much everything Ed wrote is a good summation of the previous discussion.  To summarize the summary: LVM2 volumes are volatile.  If you are not very careful about this volatility then you could screw yourself over and you won't know it.  And even if you are so careful you can still end up screwed.

There is one particular case of this that makes me worry: loss or corruption of an incremental backup.  Because you are backing up the block device underneath you are backing up the raw blocks containing the file system metadata.  If you lose an incremental backup in the middle of your cycle then attempting to restore subsequent incrementals will leave that metadata in an inconsistent, possibly irrecoverable state.  In a worst case, loss of one incremental can result in the loss of almost an entire backup cycle's worth of work.

--Rich P.