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<p class=MsoNormal>Does nobody backup sparse files? I can’t believe
there’s no good way to do it. Of particular interest, I would like
to backup:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2'><![if !supportLists]><span
style='font-family:Symbol'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>·<span
style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></span></span><![endif]>TrueCrypt sparse files in Windows (Truecrypt
calls this “Dynamic.”)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2'><![if !supportLists]><span
style='font-family:Symbol'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>·<span
style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></span></span><![endif]>Virtualbox, or VMWare Workstation sparse
(“expanding”) virtual disks in windows<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2'><![if !supportLists]><span
style='font-family:Symbol'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>·<span
style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></span></span><![endif]>VMWare Fusion or Parallels sparse virtual disks
in Mac<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I would like to back these up frequently, and
efficiently. If I have a 50G container file that occupies 200M on disk,
the backup should be close to 200M, and when I modify 1M in the middle of the
file and then save, I don’t want the incremental backup trying to send
the whole 50G again.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>On the mac, the Sparsebundle concept solves this
problem. It’s just like a truecrypt image, but it’s broken up
into a whole bunch of little 8M chunks. So when I modify 1M in the middle
of the volume and save, my next backup will send one updated 8M chunk for
backup. A little bit of waste, but well within reason.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I currently have Virtual Machines and TrueCrypt images
excluded from the regular Time Machine and Acronis True Image backups of
peoples’ laptops. But I’m not comfortable simply neglecting
the VM’s and TrueCrypt volumes, as if they’re not important.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I haven’t found anything satisfactory yet. The
closest I found so far was Crashplan. It does “byte pattern
differential” and “continuous real-time backup,” which means
it can detect blocks changing in the middle of a file, and only send the
changed blocks of a sparse file during incrementals, instead of sending the
whole 50G again. Unfortunately, crashplan can’t restore a sparse
file. D’oh!!! :-( Actually, that’s a
fib. It can restore sparse files, but they won’t be sparse
anymore. So … IMHO … that’s not useful.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I’ve also tried rsync. People all over the place
say it should do well, but in practice, I found that doing a single incremental
takes 2x longer than doing the whole image. So again, IMHO, not
useful. Unless I am simply using it wrong. But I put plenty of
effort into making sure I was using it right, so I’m really pretty sure I
didn’t get that wrong.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Anybody doing anything they’re happy with, to backup
sparse files on a regular basis, quickly, efficiently, frequently?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Thanks…<o:p></o:p></p>
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