diff --git a/docs/faq.rst b/docs/faq.rst index 0051a48c0..0d6a1185f 100644 --- a/docs/faq.rst +++ b/docs/faq.rst @@ -180,13 +180,53 @@ Yes, |project_name| supports resuming backups. During a backup a special checkpoint archive named ``.checkpoint`` is saved every checkpoint interval (the default value for this is 5 -minutes) containing all the data backed-up until that point. This means -that at most worth of data needs to be retransmitted -if a backup needs to be restarted. +minutes) containing all the data backed-up until that point. + +Checkpoints only happen between files (so they don't help for interruptions +happening while a very large file is being processed). + +This checkpoint archive is a valid archive (all files in it are valid and complete), +but it is only a partial backup (not all files that you wanted to backup are +contained in it). Having it in the repo until a successful, full backup is +completed is useful because it references all the transmitted chunks up +to the checkpoint. This means that in case of an interruption, you only need to +retransfer the data since the last checkpoint. + +If a backup was interrupted, you do not need to do any special considerations, +just invoke ``borg create`` as you always do. You may use the same archive name +as in previous attempt or a different one (e.g. if you always include the current +datetime), it does not matter. + +|project_name| always does full single-pass backups, so it will start again +from the beginning - but it will be much faster, because some of the data was +already stored into the repo (and is still referenced by the checkpoint +archive), so it does not need to get transmitted and stored again. Once your backup has finished successfully, you can delete all ``.checkpoint`` archives. +How can I backup huge file(s) over a instable connection? +--------------------------------------------------------- + +You can use this "split trick" as a workaround for the in-between-files-only +checkpoints (see above), huge files and a instable connection to the repository: + +Split the huge file(s) into parts of manageable size (e.g. 100MB) and create +a temporary archive of them. Borg will create checkpoints now more frequently +than if you try to backup the files in their original form (e.g. 100GB). + +After that, you can remove the parts again and backup the huge file(s) in +their original form. This will now work a lot faster as a lot of content chunks +are already in the repository. + +After you have successfully backed up the huge original file(s), you can remove +the temporary archive you made from the parts. + +We realize that this is just a better-than-nothing workaround, see :issue:`1198` +for a potential solution. + +Please note that this workaround only helps you for backup, not for restore. + If it crashes with a UnicodeError, what can I do? -------------------------------------------------