EEC 116 - File Backups

Every quarter at least one student loses work due to accidental file deletion, computer failure, network failure, or a host of other problems. Here are a few things you can do to protect this from happening to you!

Frequently ask yourself this question: "How upset would I be if I lost all the work I did made my last backup?"

1. Make frequent backups in a different directory on the same computer you are working on

These are quick to do
Save only key files you have written by hand, not files that can be easily generated (which are normally larger)
Use commands like:
mkdir bkup
mkdir bkup/05.15.1400 (for May 15, 2pm; for example--this way, dirs will print in order when listed out)
cp *.mag bkup/05.15.1400/

2. Make occasional backups that are not on the same disk you are working on

Could be another computer, a flash drive, writable CD, etc.
A very quick and easy idea is to use the /tmp directory on the local linux machine. The method is the same as the one described in Section 1 above except that the target directory is in /tmp , for example:
mkdir /tmp/bkup/05.15.1400

3. You didn't make the backups you should have and you lost a lot of your work, now what?

You deserve 116 lashes with a wet noodle for not making backups; shame on you. But, you may be in luck.
Many of the ECE accounts are hosted and served by our NetApp FAS 270. One very nice feature of the NetApp is called Snapshots. Approximately four times per 24 hour period, the NetApp will look at files that may have been changed or modified since the last scheduled time. If a file has been changed or modified, a copy of it is created and placed in a special directory called "~/.snapshot". These files are not held for very long, and it can often be as short as two days. The benefit is that if you inadvertently delete a file or if you quickly realize that you really need a file that you recently deleted, you may be able to get it back.
While most people's accounts are hosted on the NetApp, there are a few accounts that exist on other servers in ECE. To find out if your account is hosted on the NetApp and can take advantage of the Snapshot backups, log into any ECE department Unix machine and type "homehost" at the command line prompt. If it returns "plum" as a response, your account is hosted on the NetApp.
For information about how to recover files from Snapshots, please refer to the ECE Snapshot Computer Support page

Updates:

2007/06/05  Written (BB)
2012/12/10  Minor tweaks (BB)