Should I create a separate partition for full server backups?

Question

Before I start the question I will just state that I am no sysadmin, but a layman seeking help.

I'm using Linux 3.10.0-514.26.2.el7.x86_64 and Amazon Web Services external backup service. In order for it to work I need a backup directory on my server, where all the files will be zipped, copied to and accessed from by the external backup service.

The question is - should I mount a separate partition on that directory? Backups can take a lot of HD space, and having a separate partition for this purpose should in theory secure my day-to-day server operations and websites from issues with low amount of free disk space.

But is it the right approach? Is there a better one?

Answer 1

I would respectfully disagree with another answer and say that proper partitioning is essential to maintaining Linux servers in so many ways (cannot say much about Windows as that is not my experience).

I do always use separate partition for backups and this has been incredibly helpful not only for planning the space properly, but in recovery process. Let me outline below (forgive bad formatting as I type this from my phone):

1. Separate partition allows for a capacity isolation where if something eats up all free space on that partition it won’t affect the rest of system. Think about /var/log for example. I’ve seen servers where users unintentionally broke logrotate and logs used up 100% of root (or that could happen with sudden increase in traffic for example).

2. Separate partition on a separate disk in case of AWS will allow you to mount it to another instance and restore your data there (e.g. for forensic investigation)

3. (Not only backup related) separate partition will let you to set noexec property when you mount it to minimize possibly intrusion (in fact that should be done for most of partitions on the system except those where your executables located)

Now since you mention that this is AWS system what I would recommend is instead of mounting separate EBS disk on the server is to utilize S3fs extension and mount an S3 bucket as a partition for backups. The benefit of this is great durability of data on s3.

Note 2 points: you MUST always monitor successful backup execution and you MUST periodically test data recoverability (read what happened to Gitlab for example)

Additionally if you decide to go with another EBS disk - avoid using LVM at all cost as 1 - fragmentation of LVM partition across multiple disks easily can cause loss of data (unfortunately LVM is not as good yet as its authors want it to be) and 2 - you can now grow EBS disks on AWS and thus you can add more space without LVM fragmentation.

Answer 2

No. In your case partitions will only make life harder in the long run. You just multiply the points of possible future* failure.

The solution to low disk space class of problems is two-fold:

1. Monitoring (immediate reaction).
2. Capacity planning (in the long run).

If you have these implemeted and then you'd find you that some very mysterious activity can suddenly spike the size of your backups, you would have a (shaky) argument to introduce partitioning.

[*] Your first duty as a sysadmin (which you in fact are) is to be much more pessimistic than your users.