3 ms·

Maintaining local, off-line backups is an endless PITA. But consider the alternative... :(

by bell-cot 10mo ago

ReptileMan 10mo ago
The main question is who is in control not whether it is off or online. Microsoft obviously thinks that users are not, and it is Microsoft. We should have been more careful with embracing the walled gardens.
- p0w3n3d 10mo ago
  Tbh I don't understand why 'Microsoft thinks that users are not' maybe because my kids are not logged in to onedrive yet. Do I understand correctly that MS tricks the users somehow to synchronize folders with cloud?
  - tracker1 10mo ago
    Kind of... you now have to sign into windows with a Microsoft Account, that has a starting (free) tier OneDrive, that will "easily" enable and start operations against directories you may not recognize are syncing, and even if disabled may change with automatic forced updates... it will then start nagging you to create a paid account for more storage, etc... otherwise tie you into Office products, where it starts saving to OneDrive by default, which you may not recognize and that doesn't even get into a lot of the dark patterns and manipulation. FTR, I've used it and usually configure to explicitly only sync a single directory.
    - p0w3n3d 10mo ago
      isn't there some powershell/magic command to disable sync at all? or you are forced to sync one directory?
- bell-cot 10mo ago
  For "off-line backups", I'm thinking air gapped. Or on a backup server running no MS software, and using a filesystem with frequent & reliable snapshots.
catapart 10mo ago
Posting this here, hoping desperately for someone to give me an example proving I'm wrong: It's insane to me that there isn't a simple, GUI-based app that provides this utility in a clean, straightforward way. Basically just "dropbox, but let me set the destination to another drive on my PC/network/VPN (or a 'repo', for 'advanced' users)". Just a plain interface that shows me my files and allows me to say "I want this folder to be backed up to here, here, and here". I can do that manually for every folder I want backed up, but other users may opt to backup a whole drive or whatever, depending on need. Seems like a slam dunk. Frustrating that I don't know enough about the footguns with backups (duplications, cpu limiting, etc) to just write the app myself, but I have been looking at what the eframe and rustic libraries can do together. Feels imminently do-able by someone who has a lot of experience with backups. But maybe it's even passable do-able by someone who just knows what he wants.
- gcr 10mo ago
  You want Time Machine and a WD Passport. Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest.
  - catapart 10mo ago
    I appreciate the recc, but it misses the mark I think? Time machine is only on a single OS, and is designed as more of a "keep my whole system safe" backup rather than a "back these things up" backup. I can understand why people might want to backup entire drives, or to backup OS content minimally, but my use-case is to just pick a few folders and only have those backed up. Not to an external drive, but to internal ones and network ones. That's the tool I'm looking for. While Time Machine can exclude everything but the folders to backup, it doesn't seem to be able to back them up with different cadences or rules about content limits or whatever else. It's all or nothing. I'm just not sure it provides what I'm looking for.
- 4ggr0 10mo ago
  For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.

Maintaining local, off-line backups is an endless PITA. But consider the alternative... :(

The main question is who is in control not whether it is off or online. Microsoft obviously thinks that users are not, and it is Microsoft. We should have been more careful with embracing the walled gardens.

p0w3n3d 10mo ago
Tbh I don't understand why 'Microsoft thinks that users are not' maybe because my kids are not logged in to onedrive yet. Do I understand correctly that MS tricks the users somehow to synchronize folders with cloud?
- tracker1 10mo ago
  Kind of... you now have to sign into windows with a Microsoft Account, that has a starting (free) tier OneDrive, that will "easily" enable and start operations against directories you may not recognize are syncing, and even if disabled may change with automatic forced updates... it will then start nagging you to create a paid account for more storage, etc... otherwise tie you into Office products, where it starts saving to OneDrive by default, which you may not recognize and that doesn't even get into a lot of the dark patterns and manipulation. FTR, I've used it and usually configure to explicitly only sync a single directory.
  - p0w3n3d 10mo ago
    isn't there some powershell/magic command to disable sync at all? or you are forced to sync one directory?
bell-cot 10mo ago
For "off-line backups", I'm thinking air gapped. Or on a backup server running no MS software, and using a filesystem with frequent & reliable snapshots.

catapart 10mo ago

Posting this here, hoping desperately for someone to give me an example proving I'm wrong: It's insane to me that there isn't a simple, GUI-based app that provides this utility in a clean, straightforward way. Basically just "dropbox, but let me set the destination to another drive on my PC/network/VPN (or a 'repo', for 'advanced' users)". Just a plain interface that shows me my files and allows me to say "I want this folder to be backed up to here, here, and here". I can do that manually for every folder I want backed up, but other users may opt to backup a whole drive or whatever, depending on need. Seems like a slam dunk. Frustrating that I don't know enough about the footguns with backups (duplications, cpu limiting, etc) to just write the app myself, but I have been looking at what the eframe and rustic libraries can do together. Feels imminently do-able by someone who has a lot of experience with backups. But maybe it's even passable do-able by someone who just knows what he wants.

gcr 10mo ago
You want Time Machine and a WD Passport. Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest.
- catapart 10mo ago
  I appreciate the recc, but it misses the mark I think? Time machine is only on a single OS, and is designed as more of a "keep my whole system safe" backup rather than a "back these things up" backup. I can understand why people might want to backup entire drives, or to backup OS content minimally, but my use-case is to just pick a few folders and only have those backed up. Not to an external drive, but to internal ones and network ones. That's the tool I'm looking for. While Time Machine can exclude everything but the folders to backup, it doesn't seem to be able to back them up with different cadences or rules about content limits or whatever else. It's all or nothing. I'm just not sure it provides what I'm looking for.
4ggr0 10mo ago
For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.