Backing up and/or synching your SD cards

[gruso]

I'm sure anyone with a Pandora can relate to this. I've got a 16GB card in my Pandora that is almost full. It's packed with PNDs, media, roms, and all my precious appdata. If this card fails, I can find most of the content on my HDD and spend a week setting it all back up again. But all my precious configs, preferences and game saves will be gone.


The first thing I'm going to do (tonight, I swear... ok, maybe tomorrow) is set aside 16GB on my computer, and mirror the contents of my card there. But that backup will be out of date within a week, so I need something that will keep content synchronised between the SD card and 'virtual card' on my PC. This is something I'd like to run manually when I put the card into the PC, I'm not after any gumby iTunes style nonsense.


The sync needs to allow for changes both ways, eg:


- New files added to the virtual card on the PC, should be mirrored to the SD card


- New files added to the SD card via the Pandora, should be mirrored to virtual card on the PC


- Any file changes (eg. in /appdata) on the SD card need to be replicated on the PC


- Anything deleted from one location needs to be deleted from the other


Now, I know the Linux hardcore are going to say rsync. No argument, that's probably the most powerful & efficient tool for the job. But this is a discussion for everyone, so I'd like to hear about good GUI tools for all operating systems, and any other thoughts people have on the subject. Fire away.

 

[slaeshjag]

I'll probably just set up a GIT repo for my savefiles, configs etc.

 

[Blue Protoman]

My laptop has a 16GB SSD, of which I have just under three gigs left. My SD card contains the same amount of space.


Not good.

 

[Anihil8ion2199]

Wouldn't it be possible to just connect an external hard drive to the Pandora and just make a backup that way?

 

[gruso]

I'll probably just set up a GIT repo for my savefiles, configs etc.

And I thought rsync was going to be the geekiest answer. I tip my hat, sir.

Wouldn't it be possible to just connect an external hard drive to the Pandora and just make a backup that way?

Definitely. That's a bit one-way for what I want to do though - I'm liking the idea of downloading new content via my PC (which I do), sorting it into the correct Pandora folders as I go, then every day or so, putting the SD card in and *bam* all the new stuff is ready to go on the Pandora. Right now it all goes into a huge unsorted 'Pandora Downloads' folder, which doesn't really lend itself to card synchronising or backups.

 

[slaeshjag]

I'll probably just set up a GIT repo for my savefiles, configs etc.

And I thought rsync was going to be the geekiest answer. I tip my hat, sir.

Hey, there's GUIs for GIT on both platforms... I think

 

[Anihil8ion2199]

 

[Tempel]

It sounds like Unison was made for this. I haven't used it myself, instead opting for my own jerry-rigged rsync-based method of syncing all my important files across my computers, but I've seriously been considered switching to Unison.


But I've also been considering git. Does anyone know what would happen if I tried to make a git repo include a directory that was already a git repo?


EDIT: Oh, I should point out that Unison is in Debian and Arch repositories (and probably many other distributions), but not the Angstrom repositories, so it'll need to be compiled for the Pandora.

 

[Eridger]

When I get my Pandora, I'm setting up my Sd cards and just using:

dd '/dev/whatever-sd-is/' '/home/user/sdbackup.img'

Once a week or so if I'm changing a lot of stuff. Should be pretty quick, and easy to restore.

 

[meandu229]

I used Rsync on my previous pandora to sync with my NAS box,


Only ever did it one way e.g back up save files it was quicker just to scp the files over after I had downloaded/ripped them that use rsync to add to the collection, I also had it just set to the appdata folder,


worked well though

 

[Vitel]

When I get my Pandora, I'm setting up my Sd cards and just using:

dd if=/dev/whatever-sd-is of=/home/user/sdbackup.img

Once a week or so if I'm changing a lot of stuff. Should be pretty quick, and easy to restore.

Fixed it for you.

 

[Dan Pora]

I've just started using Synctoy at work to back up to a USB hard drive (Windows).


It's really easy to use once you've set up your backup folders. I don't really have experience of anything else as I usually just copy and paste, so I don't know how it compares to other options.


It's a Microsoft application which is a free download.


I don't have a link to it, but Google is your friend...

 

[Mr_Loon]

Good call Gruso.


I'm always telling other people to backup, time to practice what I preach.


Just set a backup going using synctoy (Windows Vista 32bit).

 

[BaDToaD]

My laptop has a 16GB SSD, of which I have just under three gigs left. My SD card contains the same amount of space.


Not good.

A cheap external 2.5 inch usb drive seems to be the way to go.

 

[MarioPandio]

It wont cope with synching to and fro but as a windoze use (must inject some linux), I have an will be using windows best piece of software Acronis True Image (linux based of course) and image the card regularly in child, father, grandad style. Its much faster to reload an image than copy 16gb/32gb from ext HDD.


This synching idea suggests a good linux application outthere, needs a PND version making with a good GUI, so non terminal oriented folk can use USB to linux or windows systems, or ext HDD and make effective synchs and backups.


I know that look, its "well go on then do it" isnt it?

 

[zounder1]

I would suggest you check out rsnapshot. It is a command line "frontend" for rsync that makes backup a lot easier than using rsync on its own. There are a lot of nice things about rsnapshot.


Adjust the rsnapshot.conf file and backups are as simple as:


rsnapshot sync


You can also do version backups as well.


rsnapshot monthly


rsnapshot weekly


rsnapshot daily





Finally rsnapshot is smart enough to NOT backup if the backup directory you specify is not available. (So you can schedule scripts for backup in CRON and if the backup location is not connected, it will just skip backup that run.)


You can easily have rsnapshot backup to an external drive. Or you could easily backup to a network share. Or CVS.


Quick summary of things to adjust in rsnapshot.conf


snapshot_root <-- determines where your backups go


no_create_root <--- Set to 1 and rsnapshot will not run if the backup directory is not present. This is a MUST do in my opinion.


sync_first <-- Set to 1 if you want to be able to run "rsnapshot sync". Otherwise you start with rsnapshot daily to backup.


cmd_preexec <-- want to run a script to mount a network share before running? Do it here.


cmd_postexec <--- Once the backup is done, you can unmount the network share mounted above.


Really, just read through the rsnapshot.conf file. It is well commented and you can easily configure a backup setup that meets your needs. As it uses rsync for its backend so it is efficient doing differential backup.


There is one little gotcha with backups. If you are doing versioning backups you need to order the backups in the following chronological order.


rsnapshot sync


rsnspshot monthly


rsnapshot weekly


rsnapshot daily


Cheers.

 

[CapcomSuicide]

I would suggest you check out rsnapshot. It is a command line "frontend" for rsync that makes backup a lot easier than using rsync on its own. There are a lot of nice things about rsnapshot.

Pefect! A linux version of SyncToy, without the .Net bloat.


Thanks for the tip!

 

[foxblock]

I use a program I coded myself to sync my music with my mp3 player on a daily basis (how is that for geekyness ).


Before I go into details: It's Windows only, but most likely works with Wine.


It looks like this:





From left to right:


Category dialogue - add a new path to sync to your device, you can specify a file-filter (wildcard support) and a conversion program (so for example it can convert your FLAC files to mp3 on the fly).


Main window - You can create sync profiles to store your settings, a profile consists of different categories, each one basically is a directory to sync


Sync window - before actually syncronizing it will show you a dialogue with all the files and their current status (present on source, target, changed, etc.), you can then set group-specific actions or apply them on single files. So the actual sync operation is fully customizable.


Other features:


Device wizard - for easy setup (currently only has Archos presets as that is what I was using it for, but I can add more)


Playlist synchronization - Instead of specifying a path to sync you write files in a txt (or m3u) file and the program will sync all files mentioned in this list (this is great when space is limited and you have a playlist of your favourite music, so you don't have to search for those individual files)


Build-in help.


Well, as you can see it was mostly indented for synchronizing music, but I kept its functionality abstract so it can easily be used as a backup tool.


It probably is not as powerful as SynchToy (never used it) and rsynch (I am a Windows guy), but it does its job and I can customize it the way I want


It currently is not uploaded anywhere, but I can do so if there is a demand.


[/bragging]


foxblock out


EDIT: Forgot to mention, no .NET used in this at all, so it should work on Windows 2000+ right out of the box. (ok, now I am finished )

 

[Prometheus]

Am I the only one who just creates a directory on my main box (and its backup drive) and simply copies the contents into it? :lol:

 

[Blue Protoman]

If I could, I'd do the same, but throw it all in a .RAR file.