rsync as a backup solution

[Mike Rubel]

Eric,

I'm going to use this opportunity to shamelessly plug my website:

http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/

By keeping multiple rotating backup "snapshots", you can protect yourself
should one or more of them get hosed, and you still won't need a huge
amount of extra storage.  All you need are rsync and cp.

Mike

> I would like to get some opinions on a backup method using rsync.  I already
> have a script written to mirror the data over to a backup script from a cron
> that is run every night.  I've also been tempted to use the "--delete"
> option to keep everything up to date on the backup server.  However, this is
> probably a bad idea in the event my data is deleted from the "/home"
> directory (just as an example) before the cron runs.  When the cron runs and
> this isn't noticed before hand, the "/home" directory on the backup server
> will probably be whiped out as well, correct?  So, do all you that use rsync
> as a backup method not use the "--delete" option, or do you keep maybe a
> separate weekly backup safe somewhere else.  Of course, we do have our data
> center making tape backups of the backup server as well, but let's assume we
> didn't.  Thank you!