I currently have two computers, one that has a big zfs raidz pool that I currently back everything up to. Right now, on my local computer I use rsnapshot to do snapshot backups via rsync to the remote zfs pool. I know I’m wasting a ton of space because I have snapshotting in the rsync backup, and then the zfs pool is snapshotted every day.

Does it make sense to just do a regular rsync into a backup directory on the zfs pool and then just rely on the zfs pool snapshotting for snapshotting?

Maybe eventually I will put the local machine on zfs and then just send the local zfs snapshots over, but that will take some time. Thanks!

  • BCsvenEnglish
    3·
    10 months ago

    Zfs send / receive might be what you want

    • Avid AmoebaEnglish
      2·
      10 months ago

      Wouldn’t send/receive also sync snapshots across ZFS instances?

      • BCsvenEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        Docs say this , so yeah. "send streams can either be “full”, containing all data in a given snapshot, or “incremental”, containing only the differences between two snapshots. ZFS receive reads these send streams and uses them to re-create identical snapshots on a receiving system. "

        • Avid AmoebaEnglish
          1·
          10 months ago

          Hm, so send doesn’t “create the same state, bits and snapshots” on the other side. Instead it “adds net new snapshots” on the other side. 🤔

          Perhaps I could use send instead of Syncthing after all. But then again I’m typically syncing net new data so the optimization would be minimal.

          • BCsvenEnglish
            1·
            10 months ago

            I believe there is a method to do a 1-1 build copy, but my expertise ends at this point