[Box Backup] Upgrading the client

[richard_eigenmann]

I'm not sure I follow.

If I look at my own upgrade behaviour over the last few years: Typically I
start off with a reasonably working machine which is ageing. In the mean time
the Linux Distro has been upgraded. Hans Reiser has introduced a new version
of the filesystem. The Crypto-thingy from SuSE insists on longer passwords,
the disks are too small and data subdirectories are strewn around spare
partitions. The new box arrives. I stick an up to date SuSE distro on it,
partition the drive in a way that the fragmented subdirs all fit on one
partition again, set up encryption for the data partition if it's a laptop.
Then I copy all the data over to the new box and keep it in sync with Unison
whilst I run the new box in parallel for a few weeks until it actually talks
to the USB camera, CD Burner, Scanner, Printer and anything else that you
never thought could not work (it has come a long way I must say). When
everything is stable the old machine gets decomissioned and starts a new life
with one of my parents.

By copying the data instead of dd-ing the filesystem across I get whatever
benefits the new filesystem has to offer. Without checksumming the files
boxbackup has no way to recognize that the file on the new machine was
already backed up.

Is my upgrade method entirely uncommon? Would an administrator not do the
same on an important data server in a network? What am I missing?

Regards,
Richard