Hello,

I've not run backups for the past dont't remember anymore years for my personal stuff until waking up lately and realising contrary to my prior belief: Actually. I care! :)

Now I have a central data server at home where I want to attach an external media to, to which I want to save backups of my most important stuff, like years of self-written scripts, database dumps, you name it.

I've tinkered with rsync+ssh over the last two years, also tried tar over ssh, but don't know the simplest and most easy to maintain way to do it yet. Heres my workload:

1. A typical LAMP-Server (<5GB Data) which I'd like to backup fully so lots of small files connected via 10Mbit
2. My personal stuff (<750GB Data) from a Mac connected via GE
3. My passwords in an encrypted container (100Mb) from OpenBSD connected via serial-PPP
4. My E-Mail from the last ten years (<25GB) as Maildir which I need to keep in readable format
5. Some archives (tar.*) which I need to backup only once and keep in readable format

(Deleted my ideas, as I'm here for suggestions)

What I need:
1. Use an ssh-tunnel for data transfer
2. Be quick with lots of small files
3. Keep revisions
4. Be sure the data I save is not corrupted
5. Intelligent resume functions and be able to deal with network congestion :)
6. Compressed and optionally encrypted storage
7. Be able to extract data from backup easily (filesystem like usage would be nice)

How would and with what software would you backup this stuff?

Hints to tools that can help solve only part of my problem (like encryption) also greatly appreciated.

Greets