rsync

[Ayush]

I am working on a class project for unified communications. My task is to backup all servers on open source NAS (FreeNAS). I was using rsync tools (rsync over ssh) to backup Windows Server to FreeNAS using cygwin and I was able to push from the Windows Server. But now I found my task is also to backup the servers in such a way that if there was a disaster, the server team should be able to boot from the NAS, so I am using iSCSI.

My question is should I backup using rsync over ssh or directly backup the windows servers to remote folder using cifs share?

 

[cyberjock]

That's a question best answered by you. rsync allows you to minimize network traffic at the cost of increased CPU usage while files are compared and potentially much slower backups.

It's a tradeoff and only you can prevent forest fires.. err.. figure out what backup works best.

 

[fracai]

Keep in mind that by default rsync decides which files to send by file size and modified date. You can do a full comparison, but that is indeed very much slower.