Backup rsync or clone?

[thomasjohansen]

Hi, I have a primary Ubuntu server host with 3 guest ubuntu servers.

and

I have second ubuntu server which main purpose is to be the backup if the first one breaks. This will also be a virtualbox host, configured to run the 3 guests if the primary server breaks.
(I know it's a cheap setup, but much cheaper than an expensive raid with dual PSU etc...)

Now what would be the best solution:

1. Have both 3x guests running on both servers and individually rsync within guests to guests servers?

2. Running a daily/hourly savestate and clone the guest vdi's to the backup server? (one of the vdi is +100gb)

3. a better solution?

[vbox4me2]

rsync is pretty good for this, alot of nas devices have this buildin.

[HubTou]

Hello,

Some suggestions:

• if you have many files to backup inside your guests, instead of a few big ones (eg databases), have a look at BackupPC (http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/), a very nice open source backup solution, with deduplication, automation, and many restoration options
• you might want to install your guests on several virtual disks. For example, one for the system, one for tmp/swap files, one for data. Thus, you would be able to have the first two ready on the other host, and some sort of synchronization for the third one
• maybe you can have something like HAST in FreeBSD (http://wiki.freebsd.org/HAST) for host to host synchronization

Best regards,

Hubert