One backup database with different retention policies

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1

Hi.
I have a “special” use case where I need some advice how to cover this.

I have several backup sources, with different requirements.
(1) mirror of phone A (e.g. camera folder) … retention time 1 year
(2) mirror of phone B (e.g. camera folder)… retention time 1 year
(3) Archive (pictures, videos, documents,…) … retention time 10 years

All 3 sources exist on one machine which performs the backup.

(1) and (2) should be backuped, but I don’t need to keep the files for long time - this is just for desaster recovery in case the phone gets lost / crashes.
For (3) I need a longer retention time.

Workflow is, that every once in a while I “clean up” the files in (1) and (2), and either delete them, or copy/move them into the Archive (3). So many big files will first exist in (1/2), and later in (3).

If I include everything in 1 backup job, all will have the same retention policy and the files fom (1) and (2) which I have chosen not to keep, will pollute my backup.

If I split into 3 backup jobs, my backup size will increase, since the same photos+videos will be stored in all 3 backup jobs

Is there any (reliable) possibility to apply different retention policies on the same backup job? Or is it possible that several backup jobs ust the same (shared) storage location?

Greetings,
asman

2

In your situation, restic is ideal. The downside is that it only has command line ui.

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3

One-backup approach will want to preserve the now-deleted 1-year files for a 10-year retention.
You could purge the 1-year folders of old folders versions occasionally (do-it-yourself retention).
Be careful when doing a purge, as any accident is permanent. There is no undo for bad purges.

To clarify one thing, keeping multiple copies of files uses little more space, as it’s deduplicated.
What costs you is having old 1-year files that are nowhere else because they’re not in 10-year.

Duplicati definitely won’t tolerate multiple backups to one folder. You could see if duplicacy fits.
Question about deduping talks about multiple computers (not quite your use ) – and restic too.
Duplicacy licensing is a little complicated, depending on the situation and what you want to do.