how to backup savely root partition?

hi

I use Centos5 , and have this LVM layout:

[root@PLWRX006 ~]# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00
                      7.8G  2.9G  4.5G  40% /
/dev/sda1             145M   13M  125M   9% /boot
tmpfs                 2.0G  1.1G  879M  56% /dev/shm
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol03
                       77G  4.9G   69G   7% /home
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02
                      197G  9.9G  177G   6% /u01

My question is - is it save to use lvm snapshot for root "/" partition?

dd if=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 of=/dev/VolGroup00/LV_root_snapshot bs=1M

as there can be inconsistancy.

So what's the best way to make a system backup?

I've heard about detaching mirror, but I don't use here any mirror.