best way to duplicate hard drive for backup

[Assarsson, Emil]

sön 2011-10-16 klockan 17:04 -0700 skrev prad:
> 1. is my plan an intelligent one?
> 2. if so, what is the most sensible way of duplicating the first hd?
> a) dd?
> b) install from scratch and then overwrite with xfs dumps from
> external?
> c) something else entirely?
> 
a) "dd" requires that the filesystem is offline. It duplicates
everything on the disk, even all the random stuff on the disk that
aren't files.
b) If you have a proper backup schedule this will allow to restore a
older system if something broke a few days ago. Please note
that /etc/fstab often contains references to the UUID of the file
system. You also need to make sure that the bootloader is updated.
c) You can have a working and tested standby and then restore from
xfsdump when you need to. You can set "no backup" file system attribute
on files and directories that isn't needed to backup.

--
Emil