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Incremental backup is really not ...
Authored by: alexmathew on Apr 21, '04 12:32:23PM

Incremental Backup is really not that with SilverKeeper. It makes full copies - which means a 2 GB backup will bloat to 6GB if 3 copies are backed up. Incremental should mean "only those that have changed since last backup". SK's current method of incremental just wastes disk space.

Otherwise, SK has a clean and intuitive interface.

Synk does Incremental backups well - by keeping only copies of files/folders that have changed separate from the full backup.

However, Synk has problems with Exclusions, it only accepts text for exclusions - so if I dont want to backup Images folder, and I use "images" as a text match for exclusion, it does not backup any other folder or file using images in the name.

Synk development also has stopped. So I hope SilverKeeper gets Incremental backups right and then I can switch over.



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Incremental backup is really not ...
Authored by: silverkeeper on Apr 21, '04 02:11:45PM

Here is what SilverKeeper tries to accomplish with subsequent backups whether using the folder option of not:

- as each file/folder is processed, we look to see if the file/folder already exists on the destination; if so, it is not copied, as it is already there; we look at modification date and file size

When Folder Option is set, previous backups are renamed to another folder, and the current folder contains a complete mirror. Again copy time is minimized by:
- files no longer present in the source are moved to renamed folder
- unchanged files remain
- new files are copied

So that destination folder always has a mirror of the source.

So...why are files sometimes always copied? If modification dates or size changes, we copy it.

Thanks for the "Pick of the Week"

Comments/questions are always welcome to silverkeeper@lacie.com


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SilverKeeper



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Incremental backup is really not ...
Authored by: alexmathew on Apr 21, '04 03:57:15PM

Silverkeeper,
Thanks for the clarification - though perhaps I am not yet completely clear on the files moved to Backup 01, Backup 02.

So lets say I want to backup Doc folder with two "copies"
The first backup - Doc is backed up completely to Doc (Is Doc 01 and Doc 02 created now?)
the second backup - Complete mirror to Doc, only changed files to Doc 01?
the third backup - Complete mirror to Doc, Doc 01 to Doc 02 and only changed files to Doc 01.
Is this how it works? If so, then you do have true incremental backups.

Thanks
AM



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Incremental backup is right with SilverKeeper!
Authored by: alexmathew on Apr 22, '04 06:01:40PM

After a few e-mail exchanges with SilverKeeper author, I find that Incremental Backup IS done right. I have immediately dumped Synk for SK!!
Great App and Great Support!
Thanks
AM



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Incremental backup is really not ...
Authored by: sizzla on Apr 21, '04 03:58:37PM

Can SilverKeeper backup to non Mac (i.e. FAT,NTFS) partitions over SAMBA?



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Incremental backup is really not ...
Authored by: rhowell on Apr 21, '04 04:21:07PM

It can back up to any volume that mounts to the desktop or can be found in the Network Finder window.



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Incremental backup is really not ...
Authored by: leenoble_uk on Apr 22, '04 11:13:35AM

This may have been fixed by the OS recently but when I used to use SilverKeeper backing up to an NTFS volume over the network it would always hang when it found a file with [square brackets] in the name or s/ashes and I think que?tion marks too.

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So, I said ... well, I can't actually remember exactly what I said. But it was one of the most enormously cruel and frighteningly witty put downs ever.



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Incremental backup is really not ...
Authored by: silverkeeper on Apr 22, '04 07:17:57PM

There are many limitations when backing up to shared volumes. Mainly due to problems dealing with:
- different character sets supported
- Mac OS files with resource and data forks
- OS X writes two files for every one file on the Mac, so potential for many hidden files that are important

If you are backing up data files only with no resource forks, and the filenames are simple, then yes it works.

There is no real easy way to do this right.



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SilverKeeper



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Incremental backup is really not ...
Authored by: fprefect on Apr 25, '04 12:19:14AM

A frequent solution to storing HFS+ metadata on non-HFS volumes is to create a sparse .dmg on that volume, then mount it from the Finder.



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Incremental backup is really not ...
Authored by: connell on Apr 21, '04 09:13:38PM

Synk development has not stopped.

http://www.decimus.net/synk/



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Terminology: Full, Incremental, Differential
Authored by: paco on Apr 25, '04 03:39:05PM

From the sound of it, they use the term "incremental" correctly. What you want is a "differential" backup. It may be the case that SK doesn't do differential. What they're doing and what they call it, however, follow industry-standard conventions.



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