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There are backups and there are backups. For some people, like yourself, archiving backup is the one true backup, while others make do with rolling hourly/dail

There are backups and there are backups. For some people, like yourself, archiving backup is the one true backup, while others make do with rolling hourly/daily/weekly backups or even something as rudimentary as copy-pasting folders by hand. Ideally, yes, everyone should be doing versioned backups to a zfs storage cluster. In practice, no, lots of people have just enough motivation to get an external drive and start making copies onto it. That said, I am planning to add versioning and I am looking at adopting git's packfiles for that purpose. The idea basically is to use an open format for storing archived versions, so not to lock in the users. This is in its early stages, so it may or may not work out.

sciurus 12y ago
Actually, I was thinking of rolling hourly/daily/weekly backups and I didn't understand how I would set that up with your program. Would I have to sync the same source to multiple destinations on different schedules? That seems inefficient compared to e.g. http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/ http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/ Please don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to denigrate the software you've written! I was just surprised to see it marketed as a backup tool instead of a file synchronization tool. The git packfile format is neat; I'm sure you can get some inspiration from https://github.com/bup/bup https://github.com/bup/bup (which uses it) and http://obnam.org http://obnam.org (which has it's own format).
- abcd_f 12y ago
  > I didn't understand how I would set that up with your program > I was just surprised to see it marketed as a backup tool instead of a file synchronization tool https://www.hackerschool.com/manual https://www.hackerschool.com/manual, Ctrl-F, "feign surprise"
  - skrebbel 12y ago
    That's not at all the kind of surprise that article is about. If you're going to go all Baloney Detection Kit on us, at least do it right.
    - latitude 12y ago
      To be fair, if someone casually links to a HowTo for rsync-based snapshots, saying that he can't understand how a mirroring app can be used for setting up rolling backups is a pretense modesty.
      - sciurus 12y ago
        What I meant was I don't understand how I could set up an efficient rolling backup scheme using this tool. I included the link to Mike Rubel's page because it demonstrates using hard links to share unchanged files between backups.
- latitude 12y ago
  Why is it that you are surprised to see it marketed as a backup tool? I know about bup, thanks.
  - thaumaturgy 12y ago
    We occasionally get questions from clients about using some file sync tool or another for their backups, and we are very firm with them: file sync is not a backup. It looks like your software protects to some extent against accidental deletions of files, which puts it far ahead of most file sync tools. But, if it's still possible to accidentally delete the contents of a file or otherwise corrupt it, then it's not a backup. We usually end up recommending Acronis TrueImage, which is in the same price range as your software. I'd happily recommend your software instead, since TrueImage is clunky and slow, but without archiving it doesn't count as backup software. (For one real-world example: we had a corporate client get hit by Cryptolocker. It looks like in this case your software would've automatically copied the changed files over to the backup directory; is this the case, or am I missing something?)
    - latitude 12y ago
      This reminds me how every time someone posts a salad recipe to /r/cooking the whole discussion inevitably converges to the topic of a salad without a mayo not being a real salad ... just as it is not a salad with the mayo :) Every backup has a set of risks that it mitigates. If the goal is to mitigate human errors, then, yes, versioning/archiving is a must. However if someone just needs to have a daily snapshot of their photos and documents to protect them against fire of theft, then you can certainly call it a file sync, but it still is a backup. To each his own. "Backup" is not an exact term, but rather a range of data protection techniques. All that said, the archiving is coming up.
      - thaumaturgy 12y ago
        > "Backup" is not an exact term, but rather a range of data protection techniques. We're trying to narrow the range of things that people consider a "backup" so that they don't get wildly disappointed in the future. This isn't a matter of taste. > All that said, the archiving is coming up. Fantastic!
voltagex_ 12y ago
I had a lot of trouble with Git packfiles when I tried using git-annex - Windows just can't handle directories with hundreds of thousands of tiny files in them.

sciurus 12y ago

Actually, I was thinking of rolling hourly/daily/weekly backups and I didn't understand how I would set that up with your program. Would I have to sync the same source to multiple destinations on different schedules? That seems inefficient compared to e.g. http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/ http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/ Please don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to denigrate the software you've written! I was just surprised to see it marketed as a backup tool instead of a file synchronization tool. The git packfile format is neat; I'm sure you can get some inspiration from https://github.com/bup/bup https://github.com/bup/bup (which uses it) and http://obnam.org http://obnam.org (which has it's own format).

abcd_f 12y ago
> I didn't understand how I would set that up with your program > I was just surprised to see it marketed as a backup tool instead of a file synchronization tool https://www.hackerschool.com/manual https://www.hackerschool.com/manual, Ctrl-F, "feign surprise"
- skrebbel 12y ago
  That's not at all the kind of surprise that article is about. If you're going to go all Baloney Detection Kit on us, at least do it right.
  - latitude 12y ago
    To be fair, if someone casually links to a HowTo for rsync-based snapshots, saying that he can't understand how a mirroring app can be used for setting up rolling backups is a pretense modesty.
    - sciurus 12y ago
      What I meant was I don't understand how I could set up an efficient rolling backup scheme using this tool. I included the link to Mike Rubel's page because it demonstrates using hard links to share unchanged files between backups.
latitude 12y ago
Why is it that you are surprised to see it marketed as a backup tool? I know about bup, thanks.
- thaumaturgy 12y ago
  We occasionally get questions from clients about using some file sync tool or another for their backups, and we are very firm with them: file sync is not a backup. It looks like your software protects to some extent against accidental deletions of files, which puts it far ahead of most file sync tools. But, if it's still possible to accidentally delete the contents of a file or otherwise corrupt it, then it's not a backup. We usually end up recommending Acronis TrueImage, which is in the same price range as your software. I'd happily recommend your software instead, since TrueImage is clunky and slow, but without archiving it doesn't count as backup software. (For one real-world example: we had a corporate client get hit by Cryptolocker. It looks like in this case your software would've automatically copied the changed files over to the backup directory; is this the case, or am I missing something?)
  - latitude 12y ago
    This reminds me how every time someone posts a salad recipe to /r/cooking the whole discussion inevitably converges to the topic of a salad without a mayo not being a real salad ... just as it is not a salad with the mayo :) Every backup has a set of risks that it mitigates. If the goal is to mitigate human errors, then, yes, versioning/archiving is a must. However if someone just needs to have a daily snapshot of their photos and documents to protect them against fire of theft, then you can certainly call it a file sync, but it still is a backup. To each his own. "Backup" is not an exact term, but rather a range of data protection techniques. All that said, the archiving is coming up.
    - thaumaturgy 12y ago
      > "Backup" is not an exact term, but rather a range of data protection techniques. We're trying to narrow the range of things that people consider a "backup" so that they don't get wildly disappointed in the future. This isn't a matter of taste. > All that said, the archiving is coming up. Fantastic!

voltagex_ 12y ago

I had a lot of trouble with Git packfiles when I tried using git-annex - Windows just can't handle directories with hundreds of thousands of tiny files in them.