A short question on “How-to” get back files from a backup!
I have two Backups (Jobs) of the same data, one is located on local HDD (last backup 3 month ago), the second one is stored on remote machine (1 week ago). I have access to both backups and need to recover 100% of the files due to a crash on my home machine.
My thoughts are the following: Restore 100% of the files using the HDD-3-month-old-backup because it’s much faster and the recovery is almost done (I have most of the data back). Than in a second restore use the remote stored backup (much slower to recover) to get the changes from last week. In both cases I said recover at original place and overwrite!
Is this the right way or do I miss something? The second backup is slower but recovers only the missing / more current files, correct?
As of now I am VERY HAPPY to have Duplicati as a backup tool…
Technically not “more current”, but probably does what you want, when combined with your restore order.
I can’t think of a faster way to get your 3 month old backup back (if that’s the priority), however if you want to later get the remote backup going again, including historical versions, downloading files to local for first the restore and then the database Recreate might need less total time. The full database recreate can be slow but isn’t required to do a single-version restore with direct restore or similar options for system loss. There’s of course no need to recreate the old database if you just want to start a new backup, e.g. if yours is there mainly for disaster recovery and short-term recovery needs, as opposed to keeping a long history.
If you go with two restores, the second will check existing files (including contents), and restore only when necessary. Or at least that’s what a bit of testing and a look at the code seems to show me. My log file got:
I think technically it’s not “more current” but “different”, however you know your two backup dates well, so that might be fine. For those who are less sure, one could possibly have Duplicati mark different files and allow one to manually figure out which one was wanted. Or if you wanted strictly “latest date” (if somehow latest backup had an older version) you could restore to a different area and xcopy to final using /d option.
Sometimes a restore to a different place is also good if file installation needs to proceed carefully and by hand. This isn’t much of a problem with documents, but applications and OS might not always be happy with an overwrite blast of their storage areas. For those cases, human expertise may need to be used…
I hope your restores go well. Having two is always good practice (even better if one is different software).
Thanks!
I did a restore to a different location, compared both “versions” and identified the differences. I copied the remaining files to the original destination and I am back on track.
Thanks again!
I would like to do the same thing - using an older backup on an external HDD for restoring the bulk of all files and using a newer (more current) backup on a remote storage location.
The problem I see here is that just doing a restore of the older backup first and then using the newer backup for updating and adding files will leave files in the restored location that were deleted or moved in the time between the older and the newer backup. So, it wouldn’t be an exact reproduction of the latest state.
Yes, same for me (deleted files were back…) BUT: in my case the relevant duplicates could be identified easily (appx. 30 files) and the delete files could be “deleted” again.
Between the two versions (3 month and 1 week) the main differences were in content, not in new/added/deleted files.
