Back up a bit
June 3, 2010 1:35 PM Subscribe
Is there any way for me to automate a backup for my situation?
I am working on organizing all my data (pictures, MP3s, applications, documents, etc). I am primarily doing this on a portable drive that I take everywhere (and back up regularly). My organization includes:
*meaningful and consistent file names for all items
*a strict directory structure so data can be consistently accessed regardless of OS, etc.
However, my total data will likely be in the neighborhood of 4TB due to large videos, a large number of songs, etc. My portable drive cannot hold that (it's 640GB). So my thinking is I will "offload" the larger files that are organized (videos, etc) to my home server, and keep data I regularly need to access or am still organizing on my portable hard drive. This SEEMS easy...
I am primarily a Mac user and have purchased ChronoSync to regularly back up my portable hard drive.
Here's my problem: As part of my organization I am regularly deleting duplicate or obsolete files, and renaming many others.
ALL backup utilities I've found really have only 2 ways to back up:
*Synchronize target and source. This will remove all files from the previous backup that no longer exist on the portable hard drive, which is perfect for deletions and renames, but it won't work here due to the intentionally "offloaded" files that I don't want deleted.
*Put new or modified files from source to target but do not delete files not on source. This would be great for the "offloaded" files, but anything I delete on the portable hard drive will not be deleted, and worse, files I've renamed will now appear twice.
I realize my scenario is unusual, but I was wondering if there is an option for an automated back-up that can somehow detect file renames, or perhaps if there is a better way to handle this backup process?
I am working on organizing all my data (pictures, MP3s, applications, documents, etc). I am primarily doing this on a portable drive that I take everywhere (and back up regularly). My organization includes:
*meaningful and consistent file names for all items
*a strict directory structure so data can be consistently accessed regardless of OS, etc.
However, my total data will likely be in the neighborhood of 4TB due to large videos, a large number of songs, etc. My portable drive cannot hold that (it's 640GB). So my thinking is I will "offload" the larger files that are organized (videos, etc) to my home server, and keep data I regularly need to access or am still organizing on my portable hard drive. This SEEMS easy...
I am primarily a Mac user and have purchased ChronoSync to regularly back up my portable hard drive.
Here's my problem: As part of my organization I am regularly deleting duplicate or obsolete files, and renaming many others.
ALL backup utilities I've found really have only 2 ways to back up:
*Synchronize target and source. This will remove all files from the previous backup that no longer exist on the portable hard drive, which is perfect for deletions and renames, but it won't work here due to the intentionally "offloaded" files that I don't want deleted.
*Put new or modified files from source to target but do not delete files not on source. This would be great for the "offloaded" files, but anything I delete on the portable hard drive will not be deleted, and worse, files I've renamed will now appear twice.
I realize my scenario is unusual, but I was wondering if there is an option for an automated back-up that can somehow detect file renames, or perhaps if there is a better way to handle this backup process?
Rsync claims to support file renaming. You might do a test with a small batch of files. Keep in mind there is a Mac OS X-specific version of Rsync called RsyncX that works with HFS+ volumes, which you may want to use instead of vanilla Rsync.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:53 PM on June 3, 2010
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:53 PM on June 3, 2010
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Seems you can do the same or similar with rsync.
posted by clarknova at 1:45 PM on June 3, 2010