kangyooni Posted March 4, 2014 Report Share Posted March 4, 2014 Hello, Started using bittorrentsync (thanks for an awesome piece of software!) for syncing my home and work laptop and will make a backup station using raspberry-pi and 32GB usb drive. Backup solution will be primary however. So far using former Skydrive. I am wondering what would be the typical data recovery scenario. What I would expect is:0. Hard drive faulure1. Restoring system partition of Windows. My data folders are now created empty (say standard win7 libraries: Documents, Pictures, Music) or simply doesn't exist.2. My computer will now sync with backup server in the way I get all my stuff back. But - in case of Skydrive, everything started being deleted from the cloud. It seems logic, as my empty folders had seemingly a newer date, but it's not what I'd expected though... So what to do before a recovery sync to get files back instead of deleting it from 'cloud'? Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreatMarko Posted March 4, 2014 Report Share Posted March 4, 2014 The first thing to bear in mind is that BitTorrent Sync is first and foremost a file synchronization tool - rather than a "backup" / "system restore" / "disaster recovery" tool - if that's what you're primary interested in, you may be better suited to other software solutions primarily designed for such tasks. In relation to your "scenarios": 0. Hard drive failureTheoretically, you could use Sync to sync the entire contents of one drive to another drive (on a remote machine/NAS, etc). However, it is currently not recommended to sync an entire drive, as this can lead to multiple issues (for example, on Windows, Sync is unable to access system/protected files - i.e. "Recycled" or "System Volume Information" folders) - so Sync won't produce a true "clone" of one hard drive to another 1. Restoring system partition of WindowsSee above.... and remember that Sync can't sync files that are currently open/locked/in use by other applications (including by the OS itself), or files/folders that it doesn't have sufficient permissions to access/read. Basically, Sync can be used to sync your important files/documents/pictures/music etc to other devices, and in this way, if one device fails, you'll still have a copy of these files on your other devices. However, sync isn't designed to "clone" or "backup" your entire Operating System! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kangyooni Posted March 4, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2014 Sorry, I didn't explain clearly. Partition restore I would do with Norton Ghost or whatever else. This would recover my computer to the point where system & all software is perfectly installed, including bittorrentsync but without documents, music and so on. So, I don't want to keep my whole system drive synced, only user-specific data. So what I'd expect from the sync software is only to load my personal files from other devices (and not to wipe other devices instead ) after I restore my system partition with dedicated software. And do that as easy as possible.What comes to my mind is: - create all sync folders, change their dates back to very old (like 1970 or something) and then start sync - have bittorrentsync configured on the partition image, but completely delete all sync logs and sync folders (will it work as expected?) Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stallemanden Posted March 6, 2014 Report Share Posted March 6, 2014 I would suspect, that the best solution for re-syncing your data after restoring your computer, would be to set up the synced folders after restoring.The date set on the folder is, to my knowledge, not essential as to what needs to be synced.This would rather be the metadata system within btsync. The behaviour of btsync regarding to what will be synced, if already set up in your ghost I am not sure about, but I would suspect, that it looks at the newest metadata and then files/folder dates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RomanZ Posted March 6, 2014 Report Share Posted March 6, 2014 kangyooni, The easiest way to restore data from backup is to add an empty folder with the secret taken from your RPI - and sync will populate it with the data.If you adding the non-empty folder after restoring the system, still the data from RPI is going to be taken as it has newer change time. stallemanden,That's right. BTSync stores "Change time" for every file in the database, which might be different from file's mtime. When a fresh folder is getting added to BTSync the "Change time" in DB is set equal to mtime. So when you add the re-imaged PC folder, "Change time" is going to be newer than old mtime of restored files, and they are going to be updated from backup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlwaySyncd.com Posted March 7, 2014 Report Share Posted March 7, 2014 (edited) kangyooni,BTSync will work fine, when you add your sync folder on the system that you are recovering to just use the read-only secret. That way the folder will only download files from another device. If you use the read/write secret then BTSync will work exactly as designed, by synchronizing the newest folder out to all devices. Edited March 7, 2014 by AlwaySyncd.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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