rsync backup

If you used rsync, you would still need to do a base OS install to get network connectivity before you could restore the "image".

It is certainly doable though.

so you could use rsync to "image" the server and use this image if the server goes down to restore the server?

It is not an image, it is a replication of the filesystem.  So you still have to boot from a CD, install your OS and then rsync the whole thing back to the PC.

If you want an actual image you can restore, try something like selfimage.

yes, i think my goal should be, if the server goes down, what is the fastest way back up . in my experience - 90 percent of the time, the hard drive crashes - the cpu, memory, power are almost never the cause of the crash. so if i have a way to image the running drive, and the main drive crashes - i could mount the backup drive and run from that until the replacement drive comes in. if it helps, i'm running a HPUX server.

In theory, if you are just mirroring the drives that should work.  But if that is the case, I would suggest an actual RAID 1 mirror instead of RSYNC.  It would be much better.  Especially if you can do it with your hardware drive controller instead of in software.

exactly!! i didn't even think of that, i have a mirror on the internal drives. but this is a server with SCSI drives and an external SCSI port. so i could get a external SCSI drive, and mirror it to the internal drives. my goal is to have the drives hot swappable and take a drive off site in case of a fire. maybe if i can set this up, i could have two external drives, and break the mirror on one of the external drives, then take that off site, and start rotating the external drives

I suppose you could, but breaking a mirror all the time seems less than desireable.

so i wonder what is the best way to get my crucial server back up as quick as possible?

thanks for the help