bit-team
[Usage question] Backup files I don't want to keep in original location?
Hello,
I would like to get some confirmation from other users or any devs of BiT that this is a solid strategy, to avoid losing files down the line. I think there's no BiT feature to do this automatically, if there is one, let me know.
The issue
I have a folder with files and subfolders that are used in varying degrees. Here's a diagram to make it easy to understand:
tobackup/
|- frequently/
|- infrequently/
Let's say I have a folder called tobackup/, that contains subfolder frequent/ that I use frequently and subfolder infrequently/ which I rarely touch, but want to keep for those few cases when I use it, or for the possibility that I will start using it more frequently.
I'd like to keep infrequently/ only in backup (on an external disk), and restore it when needed.
My current solution
My impression was that BiT is not suitable to back up tobackup/, since it keeps the live copy and the backup in sync. For this reason, my strategy so far has been to manually copy tobackup/ to an external drive. This does not keep history, but it allows me to delete infreqntly/ from the source directory and only keep it on my external drive, which has a lot more space.
A possible solution involving BiT
My question then is this: I thought of a strategy to do this with BiT, and I wonder whether there's any problems that I don't see.
The strategy is: make a BiT profile for tobackup/, take a snapshot and name it "Complete". Instruct BiT to never delete named snapshots. Then delete infrequently/ from the source.
The next time I add things to tobackup/ and want to back it up, the next snapshot will of course also delete infrequently/ from the new snapshot, as it's not present in the source. It will have the new files, though, so my updates will be somewhat spread out amongst snapshots.
Every now and then, I can restore infrequently/ (and any other files I've deleted for the same reason) to source, and then make a new snapshot and name it "Complete". This will be a bit more manual than just taking a snapshot every now and then, but it's also more practical and organized than periodically copying the entire tobackup/ folder to my external drive.
Thoughts?
My impression was that BiT is not suitable to back up tobackup/, since it keeps the live copy and the backup in sync.
No, BackInTime is for backup, not for synchronisation. That means while your most current backup is identical to your "working copy"/hard drive, BiT does not alter past backups (if you have not set one of the delete options, that is).
Meaning: If you backup your whole tobackup (with both frequently and infrequently) into backup_date1, then delete infrequently from your main hard drive, then backup again tobackup (which is now only frequently) into backup_date2, then your second backup will only contain frequently, but infrequently will still be in the first backup. (Again, you have to be careful to not set options to auto-delete backups after a certain time period.)
Instead of the manual copying or renaming you could just have two BiT profiles, one which includes only infrequently and one which excludes it, both with different backup intervals and auto-deletion options.
BUT: a backup is only a real backup if it is the second (or third) copy of data. By deleting infrequently from your harddrive, you make your external hard drive your single point of failure, and it's not a question of if, but when hard drives will eventually fail. If you haven't done so, consider at least getting a second ext. HDD as backup medium.
The problem is that I actually tried it with some test files, it seemed to work, and then I created a real profile and ended up losing some files (that I deleted from the source because they had been backed up) :-/ I'm not sure what I did wrong, but I can perhaps try it again more carefully.
Hi, thanks for sharing your thoughts, it was an interesting read. I agree with @plgruener that this would be a very non-intended use of backintime, and therefore asking for trouble.
At first glance, you plan seems sound, because the named snapshot will stay, containing the infrequently data you want it to hold.
But then, do you really want your only copy of these files under the (semi-)automatic control of a tool that was designed to work differently? Probably not :)
I'm closing this issue, but feel free to continue the discussion.
Right, sorry for not following up here. I ended up using LuckyBackup for this use case after all, which has a relevant option. It doesn't have a great UI but it supports my use case just fine. I am using backintime for my main backup, so I can have snapshots and a clean UI, and LuckyBackup for everything I only need one copy of and to be able to delete files from the source. Good that you closed the issue, it's essentially been solved.