Haven’t made a backup of your Linux system yet? Better stop reading this article and make a backup of the system first! Well, at least until you’ve already learned how to do so. System backups can be made using dd, rsync and rsnapshot. There are three different scenarios of taking the backup – ugly, bad and good.

If you are in the second phase of the backup, i.e bad scenario, then in this scenario backup is made on the same server. When the database or application crashes it can be restored but if the whole server is crashed than all the backup is in vein.

So when you are when you are in the bad scenario of taking a backup, then we must make a backup on multiple locations rather than considering only same server. There are 4 different locations mentioned where you can have your backup.

Backup on the same server:

This is approach is very straight forward. Take the backup of all your necessary and critical files and information and store it on the disk of the same server. If using NFS on the local server you have mounted a remote dedicated backup file system , it’s the same thing as you placed the backup on the same server. One of the biggest disadvantages of doing this is that if my mistake you erased everything on your system or your system is crashed due to some reason, all of your data will be lost. Storing the backup on the same server is good for storing the data but you should consider other backup locations too.

Backup on different system:

If you have made a backup on your local server, it will be a good thing to make a backup on the remote server also. You should assign a remote backup server having a lot of space to save your backup. If you have a dedicated remote server for the backup, you have the choice that you can start backup even from a dedicated remote server and there is no need to store the backup on the local server.

Tape backup:

If you don’t have a dedicated remote server to save all of your backups, you can have tape backup to store all of your data and implement the other backup solution. Tape backups are usually slow. So it is suggested that firstly you must keep a backup on your local server and after that, in the weekend you must move your data from the local server on the tapes. One advantage of having the tape backup is that you can move around with your backup anywhere because they are portable.

Backup at an off-site:

If you have made a backup on all of the above place, still there are some chances that you can lose your data, when disaster strikes. In case, if the physical position of all the things like tapes, backup server, and a local server is the same,  in the disaster situation your data might be lost. So it is better to store a backup on the off-site.