[Dovecot] Backing Up

[mikkel at euro123.dk]

> mikkel at euro123.dk wrote:
>> One option that I would prefer if I were to backup the entire store with
>> one command would be generating a snapshot of the file system.
>> And then rsync or cp that snapshot. That way you’ll always get a
>> consistent backup and you won’t have to worry about how long the backup
>> takes to finish.
>
> Snapshot seems like an excellent idea to avoid files missing files
> moving between /cur and /new. However, it should be pointed out that
> this is extra io for the server (with LVM at least) whilst the backup is
> running

I only have experience wuth UFS (FreeBSD) and ZFS (Solaris).
Snapshots on UFS is a horrible thing for large file systems.

Snapshots on ZFS is marvellous (which I use). It does not result in any
extra IO whatsoever due to some clever designing.
If you have the option of using ZFS it's definitely the best way to do it.

Regards, Mikkel