Performing push backups – Part 2: rsnapshot
After I discussed a possible backup solution using rdiff-backup in the last part of this series I want to show you the second tool which is rsnapshot.
As I already pointed out, I'm not using rdiff-backup anymore. The reason is mainly that it is simply too slow. I'm using a Raspberry Pi as my NAS and it is absolutely not capable of handling larger backups with rdiff-backup. It works for smaller backup sizes, but not for my entire home directory. Even when I pushed the initial full backup directly to the backup disk (not using my Raspberry), all future incremental backups were still unbearably slow. Even when no files changed at all, it took hours over hours for simply comparing all the files I had in my home directory to those on the NAS, whereas a full comparison using rsnapshot is done within five to ten minutes. Now keep this in mind and look at the fact that incomplete backups made with rdiff-backup can't be resumed. You could imagine that in the end you wouldn't have any backup at all. Basically all rdiff-backup would do is to compare and push your files over the day and abort in the evening when you shut down your workstation. And then the next day it would spend all the time reverting the incomplete backup and running another one which might not finish either.
So this is the main reason I stopped my experiments with rdiff-backup. It was a nice time, but I finally moved on. Therefore say hello to our new precious star: rsnapshot!