What directories / files should be in upupbbsave for a backup?

[Chelsea80]

Hello All,

My OS is (see Signature 1)

For the first time I started to do a backup of the Save Folder using:

> Applications > Utility > Pupsave Backup

Pupsave Backup.jpg (35.74 KiB) Viewed 1256 times

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Many times directories / file names were repeated on the rolling screen.

After 40 minutes it was still going so I clicked the Quit button.

So I thought ‘a bit of housekeeping is in order’.
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My questions before doing a Pupsave Backup are:

1. What directories / files MUST be in upupbbsave before starting Pupsave Backup?

2. What directories / files COULD be in upupbbsave before starting Pupsave Backup?

3. What directories / files MUST NOT be in upupbbsave before starting Pupsave Backup?
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This is what is INSIDE upupbbsave.

Inside upupbbsave.jpg (24.23 KiB) Viewed 1256 times

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This is what is OUTSIDE upupbbsave.

Outside upupbbsave.jpg (43.51 KiB) Viewed 1256 times

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Thanks.

[bigpup]

Whatever is in the save needs to be in the save.

The save is a Linux file system inside the save file/folder.

It contains changes to the operating file system.

The different directories are there, because something in that directory is different from the same directory in the operating file system.

All of them need to be in the save.

The different SFS files that makeup the Puppy OS are not copied only the save file/folder.
Those do not change they are read only.
They do not need to be saved.

The biggest thing that affects the time it takes to make a backup copy of the save, is how big is it.
The write speed of where you are placing the copy.
If you are compressing the save copy or just doing a normal copy.

Best to be doing the backup, when it is just booted to the desktop, and no programs are running.

You are making a copy of a 43GB save folder.
So it does take time.

The Pupsave Backup program is designed to make sure it is getting a good copy, so it checks a lot to be sure.

You are also putting the backup copy on the same partition as the save is located. /mnt/home
So it has to first read into memory from the partition, before it can write to the partition.

Try placing the backup on a different drive if you can.
That should be able to read and write exactly at the same time.
Even a different partition on the same drive may be a little faster.

Copy try to do a copy and past in Rox file manager to make a normal copy of the save folder.
Just add bak. to the beginning of the copies name, so it is not seen as a usable save.
Remove the bak. from the name to turn it back into a usable save.

But read this warning info about copying big stuff in Rox:
viewtopic.php?t=11962
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[Chelsea80]

@bigpup

OK, thanks for the info

Will try again with Pupsave Backup, but this time to a 116GB USB memory stick formatted with ext3.

I was just trying to find a way to slim down the upupbbsave somewhat.

[mikewalsh]

@Chelsea80 :-

As m'colleague says, the 'save' is the important bit to backup. The whole thing. I definitely wouldn't attempt to 'trim' the contents. Bad idea!

If the worst comes to the worst, the OS files themselves are very quick & easy to replace. But what's in the 'save' is all the product of your own work; your installed programs, your personal modifications/customizations, etc. This is what's time-consuming to have to do all over again.

Bigpup and I take a rather different approach to this. He will usually recommend any of the various existing utilities on the Forum, depending on what the required task is. With respect to backups, all I've ever done is to run a simple copy/paste operation on the 'save' (actually, I just backup the whole of each Pup's frugal directory - all 12 of them! - via an automated script running from a weekly cronjob), as I have various personal modifications that sit in /mnt/home itself). But don't let that stop you from USING the provided utilities.....because that's what they were written for.

As with so much in Linux - and Puppy even more so! - there are often multiple approaches to "getting the job done". Whatever method you choose to try out, if it works for you.....that's great! Stick with it.

Mike.

[wizard]

@Chelsea80

If you want to reduce your backup size, try using gdmap (or better yet QDirStat) to see what is taking up the space in the save folder Generally these things take up a lot of space, so move them out of the /root (which removes them from the save folder).

-installed programs, use .sfs or portables instead
-web downloads, change the download location to somewhere in /home
-browser caching, change to somewhere in /home
-video or audio files, move them out of the /root directory
-other files you create, move them out of the /root directory

wizard

[Chelsea80]

@mikewalsh - @wizard

Thank you both for your input.

Will give each a try.