Hello,
I just did a clean install of my computer and created a new backup of my home folder inside my usual destination.
This means that from now on, I will not be touching my old home folder snapshot anymore. How do I preserve it from being pruned? Especially the function “Delete snapshots older than XXXX days”?
Thanks a lot!
As long as you don’t specify a -keep 0:n option, the first snapshot won’t be removed. For instance, if the first option is -keep 30:n, then Duplicacy will always keep the very first snapshot, then remove any snapshot that is within 30 days but still older than n days.
Ok but the first snapshot is probably the least relevant for me since it’s the oldest data. Any workaround? Or do I need to put a very high number of days before deleting old snapshots so they never get deleted (but then this will impact all my backups, I can live with that…)
So you want to preserve all backups made from your old home folder? If so, just use a new repository/backup id for new backups, and don’t use the -a option when pruning backups (so only backups with the new repository/backup id will be pruned).
However, if you’re rung the web GUI, the prune job automatically sets the -a option, so the best approach would be to create a new storage for new backups.
I’m using the web interface and I have another huge backup on the same storage so I guess my only option remaining is to never delete older backups.
Sorry I correct myself – the -a option is automatically added when you create a new prune job, but you can remove this option and add a -id backup_id option. Since only one -id option can be specified you’ll have to create one prune job per backup id.
Ok so it’s perfect! Thanks a lot!
Perhaps -tag could be used?
If all backups from new pc had the same tag ‘newpc’, he could use -tag newpc to target all of them?
I’d certainly like to see -tag used more (e.g. hopefully soon Gilbert will add that capability to the copy command)…
But in this case, I think we need more options like being able to specify multiple -ids in a prune command and maybe even an -exclude in which you can also specify multiple of these. Maybe even wildcard pattern matching for ids? IMO, these changes are kinda necessary in support of different retention periods.
Wouldn’t it be easier to just create a new snapshot-id for the new computer/home?
Chunks already backuped will be used with the new snapshot-id.
This way prune will run only for the new snapshot-id, preserving the revisions created with the old snapshot-id.
It’s a solution to the OP question (I will not be touching my old home folder snapshot anymore. How do I preserve it from being pruned?), without worries about the keep parameter
I don’t understand how it would preserve the old snapshot-id?
I created a new snapshot-id but the prune command is applied to the entire storage and I already have another snapshot in the same storage folder.
Just execute the prune command with the id option pointing only to the new snapshot-id:
And execute a second prune command pointing to this other snapshot-id.
Oh ok you were referring to the prune command when you were saying « snapshot-id », I misunderstood sorry!
Yes I plan to do this! Thanks