Re: [rdiff-backup-users] rdiff-backup reliability ad lzop compression

[Charles Duffy]

roland wrote:
> first i'd be happy to know, how "reliable" rdiff-backup is in general.
Speaking as a user, rdiff-backup isn't perfect -- it has bugs, to be 
sure -- but none of the issues we've seen impact data integrity. Our 
internal QA team has given it their approval, and we're using it for 
data for which lawsuits could (and quite likely would!) be spawned were 
it lost.

> regarding diskspace, there is one idea coming to my mind:
>  
> what about storing _all_ of the backup data compressed and adding a 
> layer of "realtime compression/decompression" - i.e. instead of only 
> gzipping the data in rdiff-backup-data subdir, why not compressing the 
> data in "destination_directory", too ?
The rdiff algorithm implies random access -- if you're going to rewrite 
just one block, you don't want to recompress the whole file. Also, some 
users (me!) consider having the data be in original form on the backup 
server a substantial convenience -- so even if the above issue didn't 
apply, we'd still want this feature to be optional.