Tower of Hanoi Dump Sequence

Taking a page from the UNIX System Administrator’s Handbook, I’m using the Tower of Hanoi dump sequence for backing up my servers.  Here’s how I’ve implemented it:

0->3->2->5->4->7->6->9->8->
1A->3->2->5->4->7->6->9->8->
1B->3->2->5->4->7->6->9->8->
1C->3->2->5

Level 0 is done on the first day of the month.  Level 0 (complete) dumps are saved with a month stamp and saved forever.  Level 1 (incremental) dumps are overwritten every 30 days.  All other (differential) dumps are overwritten every 9 days.

Dumps are saved nightly to a 2TB external hard drive using dumpe2fs.  Not ideal but it works for what I want.