Sync For Backup - And No Deleting

[SyncBackupUtility]

I have a server with a bunch of data on it (nothing that needs particular security, no medical files or anything like that). I have a computer with more than enough space on it to hold all of that data - however, copying it all would be a huge pain. Then I heard about BitTorrent Sync - seems like the perfect option to keep the PC tied to the server with little effort.

 

My question, though, is what happens if, for some reason, all of the data gets deleted from the server? I don't know why that would happen exactly, but I'm trying to plan for all scenarios. I'd like to keep the data on the PC as a backup - no matter what happens to the server, there will be a copy of the data on the PC.

 

Does such an option exist for BitTorrent Sync? Ideally, it would be something like "add only" - the receiving computer can have new files added to it, but can never delete older files (to prevent some kind of 'delete all' scenario). I know it's not the exact use case for the product, but hopefully this kind of a thing isn't too crazy.

 

(I did do some research into this before posting - I saw this topic: http://forum.bittorrent.com/topic/24862-only-upload-and-update-not-delete/ and it seems like the answer was no, at least as far back as 2014 - perhaps there's an update, though.)

Edited December 21, 2015 by SyncBackupUtility

[Helen]

SyncBackupUtility,

 

My question, though, is what happens if, for some reason, all of the data gets deleted from the server?

This deletion will be propagated to RO server, and the files will be moved to Archive there. 

Send-only backup is implemented for mobiles only so far. TBD for desktops. 

[SyncBackupUtility]

Thank you very much foe your reply - this actually is sufficient for my needs. while the most likely scenario is that the server simply goes down, on the off chance that everything is deleted and those changes are propgated via Sync, I'll have to make sure that my Archive settings allow for a large enough archive to hold all of the files. I can then make the claim that, should everything be deleted from the server, I can simply restore the files from the archive of the PC.

[Helen]

SyncBackupUtility,

 

Great. But just don't forget to adjust the Archive parameters (Max archive file size and Max Archive file age) to cover all your files. File age - is simply how long files will be kept in Archive, until cleared away automatically. For now it's 30 days. 

[happy.cze]

Vote here http://forum.bittorrent.com/topic/30010-none-deleting-node/

[FlatEarthisNotImpossible]

This is an old post but I think this would be a better solution.  Just use Resilio Sync as usual without worrying about the Archive.  It's another worry in your busy life.

But also just use a backup utility program which you probably are using anyway, right?  You probably backup every day and keep the last 7 days, right?

What you're looking for probably doesn't exist because it would take human-level AI (maybe not that advanced but a lot of conditions).  Sync as usual only when very special situations arise.

[SyncBackupUtility]

10 hours ago, FlatEarthisNotImpossible said:

This is an old post but I think this would be a better solution.  Just use Resilio Sync as usual without worrying about the Archive.  It's another worry in your busy life.

Resilio Sync, as its now called, was actually a fantastic solution. I set it up normally, but I did make sure that there was enough space that if everything were to be deleted from the "source", the "destination" would be able to hold it in the archive.

 

Quote

But also just use a backup utility program which you probably are using anyway, right?  You probably backup every day and keep the last 7 days, right?

We did use cloud backup (BackBlaze), which does keep a constant copy (even better than 7 days!) The problem is, should the server get hosed, it would take a really long time to download 4TB of data. I wanted an on-site copy for faster restores. Obviously, this was in addition to offsite backup, and the faster restore is really about convenience in a specific emergency scenario. Offsite backup was step one.

 

Quote

What you're looking for probably doesn't exist because it would take human-level AI (maybe not that advanced but a lot of conditions).  Sync as usual only when very special situations arise.

Weeeeell it seems like what I want doesn't exist directly, but I'm not sure I'd go as far as AI - elsewhere in the thread, a request for a "non-delete node" was put up. They seem to not have implemented it, but that's all I was looking for.

[Svenne Duva]

Ok, I know this is an old topic but the discussion pops up pretty high on a Google search. So here's my solution.

I have a Resilio node running on a Linux server, some machines send files for backup (i.e. they should not be removed from the server even if deleted on the work station). 
To preserve my files I use Watcher. https://github.com/splitbrain/Watcher
Watcher is then started with crontab (@reboot feature).
Watcher is monitoring the backup folder after move_to and write_close events. For Resilio, only move_to is needed. But with write_to also files manually moved to the server backup folders will be triggered.
When the event occur following is executed:

if [ -f $filename ]; then chattr +i $filename; fi

This means that the file becomes immutable. 
It also means that modified files will not be updated, that is okay as this is an image/movie backup and the file names or path will always be unique.

Attached is a job configuration example for watcher.

watcher.ini

[fnordsensei]

We use Resilio in the office, with a single server as the intersection point of all shared folders. On that server rclone runs once an hour to back up data to Backblaze B2.

It's very efficient and quite cheap. So far our B2 bill is pretty consistently between $2 and $5/month.

Let me know if you want example scripts and so on.