+1 for replication slots. Just remember to remove the slot if you decommission a server; otherwise storage on the master will grow forever. innobackupex works

+1 for replication slots. Just remember to remove the slot if you decommission a server; otherwise storage on the master will grow forever. innobackupex works fine locally on the server, streaming out to netcat or ssh on the remote side. Nothing wild like read only NFS required. It also copies all binlogs. Mydumper is pretty old at this point and doesn't do most of the things innobackupex can. I wouldn't recommend it.