How to back up multiple separate folders

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#1

Hello,

First I’d like to say that Crashplangate forced me to look for alternatives and I think that duplicacy is the leading option and I’d like to thank you for that.
I think that you should collect all the “stupid questions” issues and make a FAQ out of them (I think that the BorkBackup site got that right).

Anyway, my question regards backing up several directories on a Windows machine. Let’s say my folder structure is:
c:\foldera\folderb
c:\folderc\folderd
c:\foldere\folderf
and I’d like to back up folders b, d and f (no common ancestor).

  • I understand that I have to “duplicacy init” each one of them?
  • Should I use a different bucket (I use Backblaze B2 for example) or different directory inside the same bucket? Is there an option to use the same storage so that the different folders can enjoy the benefit of deduplication?
  • On the task scheduler, I need to schedule three different tasks, one for each folder or is there another option?

Thank you for your reply and this great backup tool.

#2

I understand that I have to “duplicacy init” each one of them?

You can do that, but a better approach is to create a separate directory and then link in all three directories using symlinks (if the same backup schedule works for all). That being said, another user just reported an issue with the symlink handling on Windows. I will take a look at that and let you know if this strategy works.

Should I use a different bucket (I use Backblaze B2 for example) or different directory inside the same bucket? Is there an option to use the same storage so that the different folders can enjoy the benefit of deduplication?

You should definitely use the same bucket even if you create 3 repositories, for deduplication.

On the task scheduler, I need to schedule three different tasks, one for each folder or is there another option?
Yes, one for each repository but if you go the symlink route only one is needed.

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#3

If symlinks work on Windows, it would make it easy to handle multiple directories. Please let us know (and add example if possible).

Just to make sure I understand, there is no problem with running the following commands one after the other:

cd \folder1
duplicacy init mycompter-folder1 "b2://mybucket"
duplicacy backup
cd \folder2
duplicacy init mycompter-folder2 "b2://mybucket"
duplicacy backup

I understand that’s the preferred method in order to enjoy the benefits of deduplication.

#4

I can confirm that is a bug on Windows. But as @thrnz pointed out if the symlink has the same last component then it should work fine. So in your case you should create 3 symlinks folderb, folderd, and folderf.

Right, if you want more deduplication you should initialize different repositories with the same storage URL.

#5

That’s interesting. Is that the reason why Duplicacy doesn’t provide Backblaze B2 folder support?
All repositories, even all repositories on different computers, should go to one single Backblaze bucket, for deduplication?

So if I want to backup my 5 family computers with let’s say 5 different repositories each, all should go to one single Backblaze bucket – or even to the same drive and folder on a local computer, to have the best deduplication?

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#6

To take advantage of deduplication, yes, computers should back up to the same location (bucket or specific folder, depending on the backend).

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