[rdiff-backup-users] Re: Restarting development

[Oliver Mattos]

>(it will likely eliminate the
> current mirror in favor of a block-level database, but it solves a host of
> other cross-platform issues so its appealing to me).

One of the major nice things about rdiff-backup at the moment is the
ability to restore the latest version of the repository with a simple
file copy.  It also has a nice benefit that users can be given
read-only access the the backup if necessary, without requiring
special tools to extract files from it.

As a user, this is why I picked rdiff-backup over all the proprietary
backup solutions that make a massive binary blob containing your
backup.


One could consider a hybrid approach, where code is in place to allow
any piece of data to either exist in a large database, or be
referenced from the database to a file.  Then, the latest versions of
files can be stored in a traditional tree hierarchy, all referenced
from the database.  Difficult files, like those with unicode names,
properties supported on one platform and not another, deleted or
renamed files, etc. could then simply be left inside the database,
rather than referenced as external files.

I'm defining "database" here to mean any data store which requires
rdiff-backup to make use of - ie. the files\data aren't useful when
browsed with any old file manager.