Re: [gentoo-user] Firefox, downloading files and odd behavior.

[J. Roeleveld]

On Thursday, January 10, 2019 1:55:59 AM CET Dale wrote:
> Wols Lists wrote:
> > On 07/01/19 10:46, Dale wrote:
> >> From what I've read, that can be overcome.  If you get say a SMART
> >> message that a drive is failing,
> >
> > Yup, I have to agree that SMART isn't always reliable, but if you
> > *monitor* it, it should give plenty of warning of the recording medium
> > failing ...
>
> Yep.  It may not detect a spindle motor that is about to fail.  I'm sure
> it can't detect that lightening is about to strike and the drive get hit
> with a surge either.  It can generally tell if the media is failing
> tho.  I've read it can detect some components that are starting to fail
> to, not all but some.  Still, even tho it can't detect everything, it is
> better than no warning at all.  Until something better comes along, ESP
> maybe, it will have to do.  ;-)
>
> >> just remove that drive or remove the
> >> whole LVM setup and use something else until a working drive setup can
> >> be made.  Once ready, then move the data, if the drive still works, to
> >> the new drive.  That is basically what I did when I swapped a smaller
> >> drive for a larger one.  I moved the data from one drive to another.  It
> >> did it fairly quickly.  Someone posted that it may even be faster to do
> >> it with LVM's pvmove than it is with cp or rsync.  I don't know how true
> >> that is but from what I've read, it moves the data really efficiently.
> >
> > Point is, it works at a different level. Both cp and rsync are NOT
> > guaranteed to copy your filesystem accurately - mine is full of hard
> > links and that will give both those two a hard and nasty time.
> >
> > LVM copies the block device underneath the file system, so it is less
> > efficient in that it will copy 3GB if you have a 3GB partition, but it
> > is far simpler in that it neither knows nor cares what the file system
> > is doing at the next level up. Give a file-system like mine to "cp -a"
> > and it'll bring the system to its knees trying to keep track of where
> > everything is.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Wol
>
> That was what I read but couldn't recall enough to tell how it does it.
> That explains why it can be done while in use to.
>
> Just how do you do backups?  If cp -a and rsync would not work
> correctly, what do you use?  I'm just curious now.  ;-)

There are backup tools that do handle hardlinks correctly. "app-backup/dar" 
comes to mind. I know this as my software-share is filled with hardlinks and 
when I restore the backup, they are all still there.

--
Joost