[cvsnt] CVS Backups

[Trevor Leybourne]

I'm wondering how people back up thier CVS repositories? Does anyone do hot 
backps of the repository and would this be a problem?

Our CVS server is a global CVS server which serves offices in London, the 
US, Australia and New Zealand. The repository resides on a 2TB SAN which is 
split with a 400GB repository partition (we have some room to grow)and 
another 400GB backup partition. We currently shutdown CVS and copy the whole 
repository from one parition to the other and then restart CVS. We then 
backup to tape from the backup partition. We do this because (a) backup 
between partitions is faster than to tape and (b) our backup window does not 
allow us to include CVS in our full backup so CVS is backed up to tape 
during the day from the backup partition.

The problem we have is that even the copy is now taking over 2 hours for a 
40GB size CVS repository (many hundreds of thousands of files) and being 
global finding a suitable time when we can take it down for 2 hours is a 
problem.

So, thats why I am wondering what others are doing and if a Hot Backup would 
cause problems?

Trevor