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Re: backing up hard drive with emacs?


From: Bob Proulx
Subject: Re: backing up hard drive with emacs?
Date: Wed, 14 May 2014 21:21:44 -0600
User-agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12)

Steven Arntson wrote:
> Sorry if this question is poorly stated...

You didn't say what operating system you were using.  (You did say
emacs and we all know the joke that emacs is a pretty good operating
system but...)  In order to really help we will need to know the OS
you are running first.

> I'm a beginning emacs user who's trying to be more responsible about
> backing up the hard drive of my computer. A friend gave me a USB
> drive with the same amount of space as my laptop's hard drive, and
> I'd like to figure out how to back up the data.

This is one of those topics that has a zillion different possible
ways.  Everyone will have a different opinion.

> I've read some info online, and am primarily confused by it. I'd like a
> simple way to make a copy of my home folder on this drive. I don't need
> compressed archives or anything--this is just in case a boulder falls on
> my laptop--but it would be nice if it had the ability to see what I'd
> changed since last time and just recopy that, rather than doing it all
> from scratch. (Is it called "cloning" the drive?)

This would be a good question in a general utility mailing list.

> Does emacs have any simple utility to do this kind of thing, or

I use emacs for a lot of things but I haven't yet run into a backup
utility written in emacs!  :-)

> (slightly offtopic) is there a cli command that would make it happen?

Many.  Lots.  Zillions!

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_backup_software

> Lastly, should I be thinking about this whole issue differently than I
> am?

IMNHO you should be looking at backup software.  You can always do the
brute force technique (brute force and ignorance will always triumph
over elegance and finesse) such as using rsync and one of these:

  https://rsync.samba.org/examples.html

For many people that is sufficient.  But after a point it definitely
makes sense to use software that is designed to do the task of making
backups.  Something like rdiff-backup.  Or Obnam.  Or one of the
others.  Everyone will have an opinion.  I have used rsync directly
for a very long time.  I have used BackupPC but it takes some setup.
I personally wouldn't be thinking of backup from within the context of
emacs.

Bob



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