[CLUE-Tech] Migrating old data to new installed system involving CDRW/2nd HD

[Collins]

On Mon, 23 Dec 2002 22:15:45 -0700 Kevin Cullis <kevincu at orci.com>
wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've got the new SuSe 8.1 (currently running 7.2) and I'll be
> getting a new CDRW soon.  I have two HDs and the second one is just
> a backup of the first HD and contains MP3s. I'd like to not touch
> the second HD during a new install of 8.1, but am unsure this is the
> way to go.  So, this is what I think I should do:
> 
> 1.  Get the CDRW (mentioned in an different post) and install on old
> system and burn the backup data (I don't care about the apps and
> config files) on a blank CD.
> 2.  Do a complete new install of 8.1.
> 3.  Put backup data on second HD after complete new install.
> 
> This brings up a number of questions that I'd like some help to
> answer:
> 
> 1. If I were doing a new install with 2 HDs, would it matter which
> FS I should use: ext3, JFS, XFS, or any other? I plan on making the
> 2nd HD not only the backup, but also a temp backup for my wife's
> files (via a simple network on a Win98 laptop) and burn them on the
> CD. 2. I know on 8.1 I can "Do Not Format" the second HD during a
> new install to retain my data, but will it or what will I encounter
> from a performance perspective if only 1 drive is affected and not
> 2?  Wiil it affect the FS performance?

YMMV, some people swear by XFS; I've gotten very good mileage out of
EXT3 (always recovered quickly after lockups, and I have disabled
fsck).  For my own personal tastes, I'm not interested in XFS (and/or
JFS) until it becomes a standard kernel offering (2.6), because I hate
dealing with patches.  There are many fans of reiserfs as well.

EXT3 is the only journaling fs that can be convertef on the fly - just
add the journal to an EXT2 disk.

I had a need 6-8 months back to do some recovery work on an xfs drive
(drive was becoming flaky), and found to my chagrin that the Linuxcare
recovery disk couldn't handle XFS, but my gentoo install disk worked
just fine.  Knoppix, of course, supports XFS, and Linuxcare may have
come up to speed by now.  Don't know about JFS, but it would be a good
idea (TM) to find out before betting the farm.

If I were doing it, I would pick a fs, do the install (leaving drive 2
untouched), monitor for stability, then backup your drive 2 data and
reformat drive 2 and resume your backup procedures to drive 2, thus
winding up with one and one only journaling fs.

Since you don't really use drive 2 for anything other than backups
(true?), there should be no new performance implications.

> 3. Should I just do a "Do Not Format" to the new install of 8.1
> since little, if any, performance hit will be taken?
> 

> P.S. Does anyone have problems running Star Office 5.2 on any newer
> distros?

Don't have a clue.  OpenOffice 1.0.1 suits my needs.  The installer is
much improved. 

-- 
Collins Richey - Denver Area
Gentoo 1.4 sytem