Assuming your dataset or shards are reasonably small (<100GB): 1. Set up a replication slave on another server. 2. Periodically lock the slave while you back i

Assuming your dataset or shards are reasonably small (<100GB): 1. Set up a replication slave on another server. 2. Periodically lock the slave while you back it up. 3. Copy files to 2 different secure locations. This gives you consistent backups that do not interrupt production, as well as a hot copy in case of some catastrophe.