Bill Kenworthy wrote: > On 08/08/18 11:43, Dale wrote: >> Howdy, >> >> Long story short that leads up to my questions, I paid off some debt. >> > Hi Dale, > > what you are talking about is not a real backup but a single copy of > your data that may or may not be complete (the delete option you > mention) at a single point in time - not quite as useful as a proper > versioned backup. Whatever your choice, also look at the restore > procedure - very important. > > > Have a look at Dirvish or borgbackup (both in portage) for what they can > do. Having a space efficient store at regular points of time is a > lifesaver at times. To restore from dirvish its a copy from the selected > tree. With borg its either restore with a command, or mount it and copy > the data out of the mount. > > http://dirvish.org/ > > https://www.borgbackup.org/ > > I moved from dirvish to borg 12 months ago and they are both excellent. > > BillK >
It's a backup to me. I may not be using backup software but if I lose the original file, I have another copy that I can back up from. Given that I have two drives that can currently hold the files I don't want to lose for sure, I have two backup copies. Whether it is called a backup or called a copy doesn't matter. All that matters is that if my drive should fail, my computer blows up, my house burns down or any number of other possibilities, I can restore the files if needed. Whether it is a technical backup or a copy ends the same way. Maybe calling it a copy is better. :-) Maybe I'm to old school. lol I will look into those software options tho. Right now I have the rsync commands to backup a few directories in a script. It's not fancy but basically one copies my camera pics, one copies my videos and the last one copies my email directory. In all honesty, if I have those three things, everything else can be reinstalled or be reconfigured. I'm not trying or even planning to copy/backup the OS itself. If something happened and I had to rebuild or redo my system, I'd do a fresh install anyway. Having the config files would be nice but only IF it wouldn't cause more problems than it solves. That was the reason for my question about using --delete on config files. I tend to backup/copy the files in /etc until I reboot then I start a new set. That way if I run into a problem, I can either use the old file in whole or take parts of it until I get whatever working again. I haven't ran into that problem in a really long time tho. I can't recall the last time I do to be honest. It's been years, many years. I'm not sure on the config files in my home directory tho. I know KDE does some weird things during some major upgrades. As for restore, easy, rsync the files back over. Even if the permissions are messed up, I can fix that easy enough. Other than that, I'm not sure what other problem I could run into. The biggest thing, having a copy I can use if I lose the originals. Also, with them being plain copies, I can take the drive to a friend or family member and plug the drive in to get to the videos, documents etc. No special software really needed. Heck, for the videos, I could watch them straight from the USB drive. Now to go check into those backup programs. Borg. Sounds Star Trekish to me, or was that Star Wars. ROFL Thanks much for the info. Dale :-) :-)
