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What is faster - backup or mirror ?

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sbwul
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Joined: Sun Sep 07, 2008 3:06 pm

What is faster - backup or mirror ?

Post by sbwul »

I know, it's pretty much a newbie question, but I've always wondered (though never tested): what is faster, a 'standard' backup or mirror?

or better:
does a mirror first check whether or not the files exist on destination and if so, whether they are newer or the same, so only newer files are being copied or does mirror copy all, no matter whether identical files exist on destination, which obviously takes more time.

Personally.. whilst not being sure whether or not it is the best way to go, I have always used mirror.
Background is that often I rename files and subsequently move them to other sub folders (named after a subject)

To avoid duplicates the backup profile would then include deleting files when they do not exist on destination, being more or less similar to a mirror profile (from my non-expert point of view).

Thanks.
Wullail
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Re: What is faster - backup or mirror ?

Post by Wullail »

To me, backup is faster.

Mirror also has to check each file on the destination and if it's not on the source, remove it from the source directory as well as if files are on the source but not destination.

Backup doesn't check for files on the destination but not in the source, it just checks if a file is on the source but not on the destination and copies it.
sbwul
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Re: What is faster - backup or mirror ?

Post by sbwul »

Yes, in that case, I suppose it is faster indeed.
In the end there may be more files on the destination drive, when redundant files are deleted on source.
Not a big problem in case of small files, but in case of large files, on my run into destination space problems at some point in time.
Had this a few times in the past after creating safety copies of large Outlook .pst files and large .pdf files
(containing hundreds of pages of scanned documents)
But that aside...

Think I will change the current mirror profiles in to backup profiles.
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