Re: How to backup a postgreSQL of 80 GByte ?

On Thu, 19 Dec 2002, Michelle Konzack wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I am running a postgreSQL under Debian/GNU-Linux 3.0r0 and a Ultra-
> ATA-133 RAID-1 with three 120 GByte IBM-Drives.
>
> Now I have the Problem to backup the stuff.
>
> I was thinking, to export all tables seperately to text files, gzip
> and backup it. There will be around 830.000 millons tables !
>
> How can I do effectiv backup so that I can get informationd from it,
> if all other fails...

I would put a large hard drive or two into caddies you can remove from
your machine (get spare back planes in case the building burns down or
something and you need to restore) and backup onto those. anything else
is gonna be slow OR expensive. Fast and cheap backup is just not a
reality for 120 gigs of data.

Going to CDR is gonna need about 150 cdrs or so, and a lot of patience.
You might be able to get some kind of jukebox cheap with four CDR burners
or something in it (the NSM Mercuries are VERY solid and reliable, but not
cheap.) to automate things.

I'd also look at some of the larger tape drives out now. I think Exabyte
makes a packet driven tape drive (the VXA drive) that can hold 80 gigs
uncompressed for less than $1,000 US. Not bad If your data compesses
reasonably well, it should all fit on one tape. Note that the packet
based VXA drives aren't nearly as fast as the regular mammoth drives, but
they offer superior recoverability and survivability in the case of
accidents.

I've seen the VXA drives running before and they are quite nice units.

If you have to burn your data to a disc of some kind, look into a DVD
writer, as it'll likely pay for itself just on the lower cost of your time
and the media needed to supply your backup needs. (150 CDRW versus 20
DVDRW)