[Discuss] full disk backups

[dsr at randomstring.org (Dan Ritter)]

Eric Chadbourne wrote: 
> 
> I've been using Kali Linux Light for my daily driver.? Works great.? However I need to make full disk backups and be able to recover since this is used for work.? I'm always screwing with it and if it's broken I'm not getting paid those hours.
> 
> Any recommendations for something to use for a full disk backup and easy recovery?? My first thought was dd or rsync.? However Clonezilla looks pretty cool.? I remember years back one of their devs being on the BLU email list.
> 

Several options.

1. dd
    pro: simple, guaranteed to copy all state
    con: guaranteed to read and write all state

2. rsync
    pro: reasonably simple, restartable, more efficient than dd
    con: lots of small files make it slow

3. rsnapshot
    pro: reasonably simple, enforces cron usage, built on rsync,
         multiple snapshots possible
    con: same as rsync, plus multiple snapshots can make things
         messy

4. use ZFS
    pro: lightweight snapshots, zfssend/zfsrecv
    con: not simple to set up

5. buy another machine and stop futzing with your work machine
    pro: work machine remains stable, damage from futzing
         limited to other machine
    con: potentially expensive

I have used all of these techniques.

-dsr-