Thank you ts678, for your detailed response. I’d like to respond in a few separate replies.
First, please, let us discus a fairly standard use case including a reasonable expectation from an user.
The use case is this:
- a user creates a daily backup
- the user understands that a file created and deleted before any backup has run, is lost
- the uses uses a smart or custom retention rule, lets say 7D:1D,4W:1W,12M:1M
- the user creates a file and accidentally deletes this file a few days later
The reasonable expectation of the user could be that the deleted file will be retrievable upto the end of the retention period, e.g. a little over year in this example.
Do we agree on all of this? For this moment i assume so.
Now, we know that the expectation wil not be fulfilled. The deleted file (in most cases) will be lost forever if the user tries to retrieve say a month later. The user will be very disappointed.
From the manual this is not clear at all. Even an informed user with generally excellent information incorrectly writes:
The issue with deleted files is pointed out in the forum at only a very few places. Your description in Github is indeed the most complete:
Yes, this is my worry. It makes clear that people need to think [about Smart of Custom Retention policy, Jochem] thoroughly, to only then realize that deleted files can and will be lost within (the smart or custom) retention policy period.
Please note that ts678 describes the same issue as i did, and deeply to, but maybe a bit abstract. The interval refer to the interval times from the retention policies, while i explained the issue via the “thinning process”. It’s all the same.
So my question is:
Should Duplicati expect users to think so hard to get to the conclusion about deleted files?
Or -mayby- should Duplicate protect users against certain predictable and unfortunate use cases?