Backing up Calibre libraries - help please.

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

FreeFileSync works on Windows, Mac and Linux afaik.

That said, 2-way syncs don't work because then your database probably won't match your library folder.

I've never really peeked too deeply into the Calibre database. Do they not work on the relative paths starting from the base path of the library?

e.g. I'd assume that if I have my primary library in /home/me/Calibre/Primary_Library and my secondary on the thumb drive /run/media/me/THUMB/Secondary_Library that Calibre's "sync" option would hold those paths as BASEDIR vars and transfer the reference from one to the other when it copied the books over. Is that not the case?

[stumped]

like he said
Free file Sync - 1 way mirror setting is excellent & vey fast, several folks here use and recommend it - and it only copies the changes, so my daily sync takes less than a minute
no great benefit from SMB shares ( IMHO) because the library machine has to be on, and it is on then all other machines in the house can use the excellent built in calibre content server for LAN access with a friendly interface

i, and others, advise don't have the master on a thumb drive, they are less reliable that internal drives and if.//when they fail its usually a catastrophic fail with no way to recover anything.

[stumped]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

..Calibre's "sync" option...

AFAIK calibre does not include a sync option, hence the need for FFS, sync-toy, good-sync or other 3rd party solutions
calibre import/export aka backup restore is for complete copies not for incremental changes

[Cactus Chef]

RE: SMB, I was typing my response before I saw the addendum about the SMB shares.

My HTPC Samba share has been offline since my router did an update and suddenly my entire LAN network decided to renumber from 192.168.x.x to 10.0.0.x. It broke all of my hardcoded IP scripts/aliases, and since then I haven't been able to get my Windows 10 HTPC to stick to a static IP that I assign it. Inevitably, internet eventually craps out on it for some reason, the Troubleshooter suggests I turn DHCP back on, and then I lose the static IP. But that's neither here nor there. I'll look at getting the SMB restored and giving rsync over LAN a try. Thanks!

[stumped]

i push an extra copy into dropbox ( into the local dropbox folder, using FFS to do it) so I don't need shared folders, but they will work
for FFS across 2 PCs it just needs read access to the remote PC, it prefers write access in order to place a temp lock on files it is copying but it will work without if you insist.
static IPs are a pain but with my Virgin Media hub I can set reserved IP address which do much the same. The PCs LAN address never changes , even if router is rebooted, & cant be reassigned because it is reserved.
in fact the Virgin Hub doesn't change the DHCP values either - it seems to renew whatever the device is using for another 7 days, as needed. and if a new device is added it assigns some never before used value - it would have to use up all 255 before it started re-allocating I think

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

RE: SMB, I was typing my response before I saw the addendum about the SMB shares.

My HTPC Samba share has been offline since my router did an update and suddenly my entire LAN network decided to renumber from 192.168.x.x to 10.0.0.x. It broke all of my hardcoded IP scripts/aliases, and since then I haven't been able to get my Windows 10 HTPC to stick to a static IP that I assign it. Inevitably, internet eventually craps out on it for some reason, the Troubleshooter suggests I turn DHCP back on, and then I lose the static IP. But that's neither here nor there. I'll look at getting the SMB restored and giving rsync over LAN a try. Thanks!

Have you tried a DHCP reservation?

[echej]

Is there any plugin or built-in Calibre way to have multiple backup copies of metadata.db like this is done in Zotero for example (the folder would contain metadata.db, metadata.db.bak, metadata.db.bak1 ...)

I could create cron job on my computer but maybe there is less hacky way?

I try to sync my Calibre over 2 computers, the metadata.db was overwritten unfortunately

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by echej

Is there any plugin or built-in Calibre way to have multiple backup copies of metadata.db like this is done in Zotero for example (the folder would contain metadata.db, metadata.db.bak, metadata.db.bak1 ...)

I could create cron job on my computer but maybe there is less hacky way?

I try to sync my Calibre over 2 computers, the metadata.db was overwritten unfortunately

No. You just have to do it manually.

And avoid any simultaneous two-way sync. Calibre is not built for that.