I don't know if anyobody already requested this feature:
I would be very convenient/efficient if your developers would write a little cli tool that can be used to extract the changes since the last backup so the delta can be copied to a remote location where the vbk can be regenerated.
rsync/rdiff are nice tools, on linux
i just dont trust cygwin rsync /deltacopy.
first of all its very performance hungry and it takes very long(on windows) for files that are >~200GB
what you could do:
- add an area for pointers to the vbk file format(or create a special file/store), which holds all the pointers of the changed blocks since the last backup and links them to the corresponding vbr.
- create a tool that can read this pointers and generate a delta out of it/can assamble a valid vbk out of an old vbk+delta
it would work like this:
1. a fresh vbk is created
2. second run the vbr file is generated with the replaced blocks
a) write the pointers into some sort of store(in vbk or special file)
b) use "vbkdiff" tool per script to generate the delta and send it to remote site
3.at remote site, us the "vbkdiff" tool to join the delta with a second copy of the vbk
4. Backup the remote vbk directly to tape, lets say once a week.
Why this approach?
- No dedup software/hardware is needed between sites to reduce traffic. which saves BIG money
- reduces replication/copy time of full backups to remote site, while at the same time lets you stick with the synthetic backup!
- is way more reliable than rsync/robocopy for HUGE files(imho)
- would be way more mercyfull to the disks, since no need for hashing >200GB files (rsync etc...)
what do you guys think about this idea?
I certainly would use it right away...
Greets
Felix
