[fabian2k]

Rsyncing the database won't work in many cases, this doesn't ensure your backup is consistent. That is really, really dangerous advice, especially as you might not notice this if you test the process while the database is idle.

For Postgres you either use the pg-dump command and backup the dump or you setup WAL archiving and save base backups and the WAL files as they are created.

This isn't rocket science, but you really should read the manual at least once before doing this. Just copying the files is not the right way to backup a database (unless you really know what you're doing and are ensuring consistency in some other ways).

[Nextgrid]

I am not saying that rsync or cp is the right way to backup a DB, I was just giving a very crude example. I absolutely agree with the issues you're raising.

However, I'd still take recovering a DB that has been backed up by rsync/cp over a DB that's not been backed up at all. If you really can't be bothered to do it the right way, you're still better off doing something than running with no backups at all.