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My kludgy solution
Authored by: astack on Apr 14, '04 12:10:43PM
I had the same problem. Right now what I'm doing is periodically running this line of backup:

tar -c -v -f backup.tar --newer-mtime 'Mar 08 00:00 2004' /Users/username --exclude=Library --exclude=\.Trash; tar -r -v -f backup.tar --newer-mtime 'Mar 08 00:00 2004' /Users/username/Library/Mail --append

This is all one line and run from my home directory. Essentially, this is a string of tar commands that goes through my home directory and adds all file that have been modified since Mar 08 00:00 2004 to a tar file (I modify the date before I run it-- I haven't gotten around to using arguments to do that quite yet). Also, it excludes my Library directory and the trash. Next, it appends my mail directory to the tar file. To use it, replace username with your user name and modify the date (change each of those twice). You can add additional directories by appending an additional tar command (remember to add a semicolon between commands)

Only use this for incremental backups! Otherwise you'll get a huge file. You can then burn the tar file to disk or gzip it (gzip backup.tar).

Like I said, its a kludgy solution, but it works for me. One of these days I'll work on getting it to be a little more automated.

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My kludgy solution
Authored by: mommsen on Apr 14, '04 01:48:06PM

just a warning concerning backups with tar: tar is very sensible on bit errors. In case your archive is corrupted by a single bit, tar will fail to extract the information stored after the affected bit.



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My kludgy solution
Authored by: Gigacorpse on Apr 15, '04 07:43:12AM

I believe that you can compress the archive directly through the tar command (although I am not at my computer to verify that as I write this). Another option is to use Ditto, which allows you to create zip archives.

I have been using Rsync with sparse disk images, which is nice because the disk image will be no bigger than needed.



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