[kwlug disc.] backups yet again

[Rick]

"Khalid Baheyeldin" <kb at 2bits.com> writes:
> eSATA sounds very promising.
>
> The links above are a bit confusing. They say USB ...etc.
>
> Anyone done this with Linux? Is it hot swappable?
>
> What parts are needed to do this? Anything special on the motherboard needed?

I have eSATA and I like it. Ideally, you should get eSATA ports
on your next motherboard. However, you can also get a card
... I think that mine is called the "Promise/Bytecc 2in/2out eSATA PCI card".

My kernel a year-old Ubuntu kernel and everything works fine
without any fiddling. One caveat: my motherboard is 2 years old
so the eSATA-card could only give 1.5 Gbps rather than the full 3.0 Gbps
that you can get from the latest motherboard.

And, yes, eSATA is hot swappable just like USB. By default,
I set everything as "read-only" (ro) in my /etc/fstab file.
(Of course, you have to be careful when unmounting writable drives.)

Also, instead of using /dev/sdX# in /etc/fstab, I suggest that you use
  UUID=c6298c81-50fa-401a-b1af-839f655382c2
Then you have have permanent, symbolic names in /mnt ... or where ever
you want to put the mount point.