Backup

[Maggie-Me]

How do you back up?


I usually do four passes.

1. Zip to an archive on same machine
2. Copy to a SD card.
3. Copy to a 2nd computer.

The second computer runs a backup of "Documents" to an external drive

I haven't played with the library main in Calibre yet, does it do a back up of files or just the metadata?

[Manichean]

Calibre automatically creates a backup of your metadata for each book, but doesn't back up the book file(s). However, the metadata backup resides in the same directory the book files do, so it only protects against failures of the central library database (metadata.db). If you want to back up the Calibre library, I recommend backing up the whole folder as a single entity, as the metadata.db file and the folder structure are codependent- it doesn't make any sense to have a backup of the metadata.db at one time and the folder stucture at another time.

[Maggie-Me]

Originally Posted by Manichean

Calibre automatically creates a backup of your metadata for each book, but doesn't back up the book file(s). However, the metadata backup resides in the same directory the book files do, so it only protects against failures of the central library database (metadata.db). If you want to back up the Calibre library, I recommend backing up the whole folder as a single entity, as the metadata.db file and the folder structure are codependent- it doesn't make any sense to have a backup of the metadata.db at one time and the folder stucture at another time.

which is what I do, thanks

[Gary_M_Mugford]

Maggie,

I usually update Calibre and my library on the weekend. Before doing so, I run a batch file that cycles through metadataDB backups. Here's the batch file:

@echo off
REM metafile copy documents
X:
cd \GaryELib
REM The default location for the batch file is now is inside your library with the metadata.db file
if exist metadata.db.7 del metadata.db.7
if exist metadata.db.6 ren metadata.db.6 metadata.db.7
if exist metadata.db.5 ren metadata.db.5 metadata.db.6
if exist metadata.db.4 ren metadata.db.4 metadata.db.5
if exist metadata.db.3 ren metadata.db.3 metadata.db.4
if exist metadata.db.2 ren metadata.db.2 metadata.db.3
if exist metadata.db.1 ren metadata.db.1 metadata.db.2
if exist metadata.db copy metadata.db metadata.db.1

Then I do the weekly Calibre update (kudos to all for having one THIS week!). Having done my work, I then re-run the batch file again. On Sunday evenings, my complete library gets copied over to a computer in my bedroom using Karen's Replicator (soon to change to Toucan). Monday mornings, the X: drive gets backed up to a NAS via Drive Snapshot. And, of course, I have Carbonite Pro backing up everything as it changes to the cloud. My DropBox account is too small to accomodate the library, but I'm thinking of getting a paid account. Having two different cloud services means not worrying about a sole provider changing terms of service, cost, availability, viability, etc.

If I lose something after all of that, it was simply meant to be.

GM