Re: backing up hard drive with emacs?

[Davin Pearson <davin.pearson@gmail.com>]

On Thursday, May 15, 2014 2:56:18 AM UTC, Steven Arntson wrote:
> Sorry if this question is poorly stated... I'm a beginning emacs user
> 
> who's trying to be more responsible about backing up the hard drive of my
> 
> computer. A friend gave me a USB drive with the same amount of space as
> 
> my laptop's hard drive, and I'd like to figure out how to back up the
> 
> data.
> 
> 
> 
> I've read some info online, and am primarily confused by it. I'd like a
> 
> simple way to make a copy of my home folder on this drive. I don't need
> 
> compressed archives or anything--this is just in case a boulder falls on
> 
> my laptop--but it would be nice if it had the ability to see what I'd
> 
> changed since last time and just recopy that, rather than doing it all
> 
> from scratch. (Is it called "cloning" the drive?)
> 
> 
> 
> Does emacs have any simple utility to do this kind of thing, or
> 
> (slightly offtopic) is there a cli command that would make it happen?
> 
> 
> 
> Lastly, should I be thinking about this whole issue differently than I
> 
> am?
> 

I used to be in the same situation where my file AUTOEXEC.BAT was deleted when I issued
the command rm * in the C:\ drive.  I have developed some Elisp tools for implementing an
automated backup system.

Check out my web page, Section 2.1 an automated backup system...

http://davin.50webs.com/research/2006/mopa2e.html

I have written a function datify that renames a tar file from foo.tar.gz to foo-YYYYMMDD-hhmmss.tar.gz, where YYYY is the current year, etc.

I have also written a function cull-same-dates that culls all but on file for a given date.  This is useful 
when you build many archive files on a given date.  It simply keeps the newest one.

I have also written a function cull-size-quota that culls older files that exceed the given size quota.
Note that you will need to hard code the size parameters in this function as they are currently coded
for my machine.

I have also written a function called demises that warns about archive files that have reduced in size more than a given amount.  Archive files that reduce in size can indicate a problem in the archive file.

If you use my automated backup system above, then all you need to do is to add a tar Makefile target in the directories that you want to backup.

I hope this helps...

Davin.