[ge-talk] Backup Server?

[Axel Dörfler]

"Ryan Leavengood" <leavengood at gmail.com> wrote:
> A simple BFS query on file modification time to see which files have
> changed since the last backup could make incremental backing up 
> pretty
> simple. The files could be backed up to an external hard drive, or to
> a separate internal drive. Then a friendly GUI allowing restoring of
> some or all files would be the last part. For a desktop OS I think
> backing up to tape is overkill.

I was thinking to add a versioning feature to BFS as well - similar to 
what Windows does; when you write a file, the old data stream is moved 
into an attribute (which costs almost nothing (beyond disk space), as 
the attributes are just like files, internally.
We could add a special index for them which would be the counterpart to 
"last modified" for files, and use it to select the ones for deletion 
when space is becoming tight.

> It may be debatable whether back-up is a "core system service" that
> the OS needs to provide, but Leopard may change the landscape on 
> that.
> The average person does not back up, and I think Apple is trying to
> change that, and I think they are smart in doing that.

A backup is only a real backup when a second medium is involved. And 
that almost always takes some effort on behalf of the user.
But it would definitely be nice if the OS would make it very simple and 
almost automatic to actually make backups for you (ie. it could 
automatically create real backups when you insert a certain specified 
media).

Bye,
   Axel.