SUSE 12.1 - System Backup Size

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1

What is the typical total-file-size of a System Backup (tar + other files) using options below :dont-know:

Using:

  1. Used packages
  2. All packages
2

On 07/19/2012 01:56 PM, tecknode wrote:
>
> What is the typical total-file-size of a System Backup (-tar + other
> files-) using options below :dont-know:
>
> USING:
> - Used packages
> - All packages

to give an answer we would have to have more info, like:

  • what is the total uncompressed size of your “Used packages”?

  • what is the total uncompressed size of your “All packages”?

  • what backup method/application do you intend to use?

  • will it employ compression?
    – which type of compression?
    – will you set it for max compression (longest time needed)?
    – or minimum compression (shortest time needed)
    – or somewhere in between

  • what kind of files are we talking about?
    –plain text files compress a LOT
    –movies, music, images are already compressed and may be slightly
    larger once re-compressed during backing up
    –executables and libs i don’t know if they get smaller, or by how much…
    –i think i read that MS .doc (etc) files are also already compressed

so, you can maybe get a feel for the problem we would have to answer…

–
dd

3

If I knew the answers I would not be asking the question.

I am talking about using the System Backup that is in YaST Administration, and I did state “tar” which is the local file-extension the utility creates.

I have no idea as to package sizes.

As to compression, I use the utility’s default tar with tar-gzip subarchives, whatever that means.

I am looking for input from users of openSUSE System Backup on their system, and what the size of the file created :\

4

Hi
To be honest, by the time you tar up and transfer a file system on a
large drive it’s quicker to just re-install on a complete failure.

To get a list of all the installed files, backup the
file /var/log/zypp/history. If you make changes to configuration files
backup those.

I use openSUSE Software
and tweak the script for openSUSE/SLE for the system files.

I’ve also packaged up fwbackups
https://build.opensuse.org/package/show?project=Archiving&package=fwbackups

I have all my data on a /data partition which I backup (I use rsync), I
also have a configuration script which creates softlinks to
my /home/user directory.

If you want a true backup then use dd to an equal size drive.

I don’t use big drives, I use RAID1 on my 500GB data drives then a
spare 500GB for my rsync backup on the desktop.

On my NAS I have 250GB drives, on this one I have a spare 250GB drive
and just shutdown the NAS, swap the drive and let it re-sync.

Notebook I do tar up my email but the rest of my data is via rsync.

Just find somewhere to keep you backups safe and off-site :wink:

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 3.0.34-0.7-default
up 10 days 15:03, 2 users, load average: 0.48, 0.34, 0.33
CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU

5

On 2012-07-20 18:16, tecknode wrote:
> I am looking for input from users of openSUSE System Backup on their
> system, and what the size of the file created :\

I have not used it in years, since I first tried it. The default settings missed many important
files, because it did only copy files that were installed from an rpm and then modified - it
did not copy extra files related to that same rpm. And it was a fairly small backup.

If you told it to backup all, it did indeed backup all, for which it first created a copy of
all in /tmp, meaning you needed to have that huge free space available in /tmp, and of course,
it crashed.

I do not know what the current version does, I’m not familiar with what the “All packages”
option does.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)