Re: [rdiff-backup-users] rdiff-backup vs. Back-In-Time

[Dominic Raferd]

Thanks for your posting Kshitij, you give us yet another backup program 
to consider - back-in-time.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it:

If your backup routine works for you, why change to rdiff-backup? 
Back-in-time (according to the website) is a GUI and under the hood it 
uses rsync, diff, cp and hardlinks to take snapshots. To rdiff-backup 
users this sounds a bit like reinventing the wheel and it may well be 
much less space-efficient than rdiff-backup. It's not clear to me 
whether a small change in a large file leads back-in-time to store the 
whole file twice; if so, these types of files (databases, mailboxes) 
could eat up a huge amount of space (in theory 24 x their original size 
per day). rdiff-backup only stores the diffs or deltas which in such 
cases are comparatively small. But if you have plenty of space or are 
happy to delete snapshots older then a certain limited period (1 week? 1 
month?) then even in this scenario the space considerations may not be 
important.

bug-free = not yet thoroughly tested:

I do think however that anyone reading this mailing list should bear in 
mind that people post here when they have difficulties. For the most 
part rdiff-backup works very well and has proved a reliable backup for 
many years - for me and for others. I recently had to recover an old 
version of a database file from about 9 months ago (i.e. about 230 
reverse-diffs) - rdiff-backup worked perfectly (albeit the recovery was 
quite slow). I mention this not because it is any kind of record but as 
a real-world situation where rdiff-backup saved my bacon.

For users who find the command line too alarming but still like the 
power of rdiff-backup, there is jBackup 
http://sourceforge.net/projects/jbck/, while for Windows users I would 
naturally say that TimeDicer http://www.timedicer.co.uk (which I 
maintain) is the way to go. For restoring, rdiffWeb 
http://www.timedicer.co.uk/rdiffweb/index * works nicely from your browser.

Dominic

* static version of the wiki; the dynamic one is prone to spammer attacks

On 10/06/12 03:28, Kshitij Kotak wrote:
> Dear rdiff-backup Experts
>
> Pardon my naïve query, but need to understand what is the difference between 
> rdiff-backup approach and the following steps:
>
> 1) we take the remote sync of primary data store on a mirror server using 
> rsync. This is automated for every 1 hour using cron.
>
> 2) to get a point-in-time restore, we use back-in-time on mirror server to get 
> the data stored locally in time slots to recover. My back-in-time runs once 
> every day and is cronned using Back-In-time internal switch that allows me to 
> define schedule.
>
> This approach has worked flawless (so far). Plus back-in-time has a fantastic 
> GUI which, for a non-expert like me is a great relief.
>
>  From what gather on this group, rdiff-backup saves much larger amount of space 
> than my approach. Is that correct? Considering the complexities of command line 
> approach, restore issues and the kind of problems you guys report... I am 
> petrified to try out rdiff-backup.
>
> Does rdiff-backup offer me any significant benefits over my novice approach? If 
> so, is there a better, less complex, more reliable way to implement backup (and 
> guarantee restore :D ) for a novice like me?
>
> Await your replies...
>
> Cheers
> Kshitiz
>
>
>
>
> Sent from BlackBerry®
> Xcuze typos if N E
>
> _______________________________________________
> rdiff-backup-users mailing list address@hidden
> https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/rdiff-backup-users
> Wiki URL:http://rdiff-backup.solutionsfirst.com.au/index.php/RdiffBackupWiki