Re: subhurds etc.

[olafBuddenhagen]

Hi,

On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 06:51:43PM +0200, Sergiu Ivanov wrote:

> I do backups of sensitive information, but the reason I want a
> snapshotting filesystem for is automated decision when to do the
> backup.

There is no automated decision, that was my whole point!

The original idea for versioning filesystems was to automatically keep
track of individual changes, and it failed magnificently. The new
snapshotting filesystems OTOH can work, because they do *not* try to
automate it -- that's exactly what makes them different.

This is BTW the same reason why I consider the manual git-gc to be a
feature, as opposed to other systems that try to do various kinds of
automatic packing and garbage collection...

> OTOH, a snapshotting filesystem is not exactly about backups IMHO.

Well, actually the snapshotting functionality is kind a side effect of
atomic updates, which comes almost for free. But it's generally seen as
a feature for easing backups.

> When I do a backup, I aim at keeping two copies of information so that
> I can always restore it on failure.  When I do a filesystem snapshot,
> I do it to be able to revert things from some future state.

Both are forms of backup -- and usually a single backup system is used
to cover both uses.

-antrik-