Can rSync clone a TM backup?

sorry I don't know, but I am going to include myself in this thread as its a question I would like to know the answer too also. I want to be able to copy my TM to another drive once a week/fortnight.

I guess rsync as root should do it, but would TM 'speak' to it in the future should things go pear shaped and a restore becomes necessary?

 

RE: rsync and TM...

Hi,

While I haven't tested this specifically, and I think this would be a great thing to test, I do believe it will work. I would be shocked, in fact, if it didn't work, but one never knows until one tests it. My reasons follow.

The "rsync" utility and the rsync remote-update protocol has an "-a" (archive) mode that maintains all ownerships, permissions, and links (and even hard links) for files and directories. As such, it should then maintain the links and structure that go into a TM backup. (Of course, a TM backup to an connected volume is different than a TM backup to a networked volume, so this would have to be tested separately.) Secondly, the rsync utility checksums all files that are transferred, first on the sending side and then on the receiving side to make certain that there were no communication errors. So, I guess it boils down to if you believe two different files can have the same checksum? If not, then the rsync copied file would have to be equivalent to the original file.

Now allow me a couple comments...

(1) The TM utility itself already allows for multiple backup volumes. If you specify two volumes, then TM will alternate between these two volumes for its hourly backups. Thus you could use TM to make two backups instead of copying one TM backup to another.

(2) The rsync utility has a "daemon" mode which means that you can run rsync as a daemon. You would then write a single cronjob line to rsync your TM backup and/or your boot drive daily, weekly, and monthly automatically and without your intervention.

(3) You could use the "tmutil setdestination..." or "tmutil inheritbackup..." commands to switch between different TM backups.

(4) I think the question to ask is how rsync handles differential backups of sparsebundles? For an attached TM backup (not a sparsebundle), the directory structure is maintained and I think rsync would "do the right thing" for this TM backup in terms of properly performing differential backups. But I don't know how rsync would handle differential backups of sparse bundles.

Anyone willing to test copying a TM sparsebundle via rsync?

Regards,
Switon