Duplicati 2 upload file order

First post on new forum! :grinning:
I have 2 folder under the same backup…
Why duplicati is uploading from the last file to the first?

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Thanks for the first post!

I don’t understand the question, what do you see “uploading” ?
Duplicati can only run one backup at a time.

I mean…
for example

Backup1
->Folder1
–>FolderA
–>FolderB
->Folder2
–>FolderC
–>FolderZ

When uploading Duplicati upload first Folder Z from Folder 2, next FolderC from Folder2 then FolderB and FolderA all in alphabetical desc order…
Why doesn’t upload in alphabetical ascending order?

It is uploading in “filesystem” order. That means it returns the files and folders in whatever order the operating system returns them.

The motive for this is that the on-disk layout is also the fastest to access.

I vaguely remember raising this some time ago, but it may have been with some other backup software I tested: wouldn’t it be better to always backup the newest files first? That’s what Crashplan does and it makes sense to me…

That would be slower, in that you need to list the files, read the timestamps, and then sort them before you can continue.

Yes, but what good is a fast backup if it doesn’t contain copies of the most recently added/changed files (i.e. the oned I’m currently working on) because duplicati is busy backing up some large old files?

Well… you are not guaranteed that you find the newest files first. The folder timestamps do not change upwards, so you will most likely enter into other folders than the most recent first.

The time spent on “old files” should be very small as Duplicati just determines that it is unchanged and moves on. If it really is edited, it should be backed up anyway.

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Okay, maybe my issue is specific to the initial backup situation? I have at least 1TB of data on my built-in HDD alone and I seem to remember that it took weeks until the actual files I was working on were actually backed up.

Yes, for the initial backup it could make sense to sort by timestamps.

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