On Thu, Feb 18, 2021 at 06:59:03PM +0200, Teemu Likonen wrote:
* 2021-02-18 11:13:25-0500, Gary Dale wrote:
rsync is a quick & dirty backup tactic but it's got limitations.
1) files may stay around forever in the backup even if you've deleted
them from your main computer because you don't need them.
2) you only have one copy of a file and that only lasts until the next
rsync. This limits your ability to restore from a backup before it is
overwritten.
rsync is not a good substitute for backups.
No, it's not. It is a fantastic tool for backups :-)
Rsync is great backup program with "--link-dest" option. Here is the
idea in simplified code:
[...]
Absolutely. Time travel!
Actually, I've implemented this at a customer's place. They were
delighted.
Where rsync shows some weaknesses is on big, fat files (think
videos, one or several GB).
Really huge directories (tens to hundreds of TB) were once a
challenge, too, but I hear that they refined the scanning
part in the meantime. No direct experience, though.
And, oh, Gary: if you want to delete files which disappeared
in the source, check out the --delete option.
But this time-staggered backup with --link-dest is really great.
Cheers