Re: [rdiff-backup-users] Merge old backup stages

[Robert Nichols]

On 09/12/2016 11:01 AM, bb wrote:
> Hello!
>
> This is the first time I read and refer to this mailing list, so if this
> is an old topic for you... sorry :-)
> I use rdiff-backup as my main backup tool in private (Laptop), public
> (Server) and profession and love it.
>
> One thing I always wondered, though, is whether there is a way to
> "condense" old backup stages to "thin them out".

In a word, no. It's something that has been requested before. The
underlying librsync library does not support merging successive
diffs, so the only way to do it would be to reconstruct two versions
of a file and create a new diff from those.

The way I handle it is by keeping entirely separate monthly backup
archives and periodically deleting everything more than a year old
from the daily archives. This has the added advantage that if one
of my archives becomes unrecoverably corrupted, I still haven't
lost everything.

--
Bob Nichols     "NOSPAM" is really part of my email address.
                Do NOT delete it.