Nov 25, 2008 : R1Soft Offers Linux Hot Copy Beta

📅 November 25, 2008 - Software developer R1Soft (r1soft.com) has officially released its long-awaited free beta version of Hot Copy for Linux, a command line utility that takes instant snapshots of disks or volumes on any Linux server, providing IT administrators an unprecedented level of flexibility.


According to R1Soft's Tuesday announcement, Hot Copy for Linux creates point-in-time disk snapshots while the system is running and without interrupting multiple system applications. Also, as block level changes are made to the device, Hot Copy makes a backup copy of only the changed blocks instead of replicating the entire drive. These changed blocks are then efficiently stored in the unused space on the hard disk.

"Hot Copy is big news for anyone that has to maintain a Linux server," R1Soft Vice President David Wartell said in a statement. "With Windows you have Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). There is nothing really like VSS for Linux servers. It's a big missing piece for Linux Enterprise IT.

While Wartell notes that the Logical Volume Manager for the Linux operating system manages disk drives and similar mass-storage devices, however, he notes that LVM adoption is not universal nor ideal.

"The challenge with LVM is that most servers don't run LVM, and even if they do the LVM volumes have to be configured ahead of time with spare disk space. Linux server admins need a simple command that allows snapshots on any Linux server at any time. This is what Hot Copy does. After installing the Hot Copy RPM or .deb package it's one simple hcp command and they have an instant point-in-time snapshot on any Linux disk."

R1Soft said that Hot Copy is not LVM-based and is a marked improvement on LVM in many ways, however, there are still some limitations R1Soft is working to implement in a later release. For instance, users cannot take multiple Hot Copies of the same device. For the time being, only one Hot Copy per device is allowed at a time.

This limitation aside, Hot Copy can be easily mounted on a running Linux server without changing storage configuration. By storing changed data on unused portions of existing drives, Hot Copy does not require a dedicated storage device, and can operate on any limited amount of free drive space. Snapshot data can also be used with legacy backup applications like tar and rsync.

R1Soft said Hot Copy is also flexible and useful for day-to-day administration. For instance, administrators can take a snapshot prior to making a server change. Hot Copy can even be used to run file system check utilities like fsck while the system is online, which would normally require a server to be shutdown.

A division of BBS Technologies, R1Soft is perhaps best known as the developer of its line of  Continuous Data Protection software, which French hosting and data center solutions provider Ikoula (ikoula.com 👉 Total Reviews: 5
🙌 Average Rating: 2.8 / 10
👍 Good Reviews: 1
👎 Bad Reviews: 4
👈 Official Responses: 0) adopted earlier this week to provide an upscale backup solution for its self-managed dedicated servers and managed hosting.

Founded in 2003, R1Soft has quickly become a leading provider of disk-based backup solutions, with its CDP becoming an industry standard. In August, European web hosting provider SpiralHost (spiralhost.com 👉 Total Reviews: 1
🙌 Average Rating: 1 / 10
👍 Good Reviews: 0
👎 Bad Reviews: 1
👈 Official Responses: 0), and online media company WpWeb (wpweb.com) joined the R1Soft Hosting Partner Program, offering its CDP solution to clients as a hosting service add-on.