Backup Calibre desktop to Portable?

[CapitalGGeek]

So I thought I was smart last year, and backed up my entire calibre library to Calibre portable on a thumb drive. And it worked great, and saved me a LOT of trouble when I had some hard drive corruption.

So now I'm looking to 'update' my portable library with the new additions to my desktop library. Not a whole lot has changed, but I didn't keep very good track of what I've added or modified.

Is there a way to update the portable library other than importing and skipping duplicates? What about existing books with updated metadata?

I suppose I could just use richcopy and copy new or changed, then reinstall Calibre Portable, but it seems like there should be a better way to sync the two.

Anyone have any suggestions, or a better method of backing up?

[mrbrimi]

I back up my library weekly using FreeFileSync. hardly takes any time at all.

[BetterRed]

@CapitalGGeek - I would start again using one of the Folder & File synchronisation tools to maintain a one-way mirror backup.

After the first time, only changes are copied -- as mrbrimi says 'hardly takes any time at all'. I do daily backups on all my data using GoodSynch, the calibre ebook libraries only take a couple of minutes at most.

And as well your calibre library(ies) also take backup your calibre configuration folder. it is where optional plugins and non-library specific settings are kept. If you don't know where that is go to Preferences->Miscellaneous, where there's a button to open it.

BR

[CapitalGGeek]

So if I sync the files in the Calibre Portable's Calibre Library folder, will Calibre Portable recognize that it has new books or updated metadata?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by CapitalGGeek

So if I sync the files in the Calibre Portable's Calibre Library folder, will Calibre Portable recognize that it has new books or updated metadata?

A full sync, Yes

Metadata is in metadata.db. If you add or make changes to any book, that gets updated (and the timestamp does too)

[BetterRed]

Calibre is primarily a database application, not a file system application - that is what makes it flexible and fast. The database (metadata.db) must be kept in synch with the author and book folder files. I'm not willing to speculate if any of the file synch tools will reliably maintain that synchronism.

A file synch tool certainly wouldn't know what metadata changed in the database - at best all it will know is that the database has a different checksum, size, and modified date.

Why do you want portable on your thumb drive, the normal reason is so that you can use it on public/friends/work computers. In which case most people would regard it their primary instance of calibre. In that case they might use a file sync tool to maintain a mirror copy of the thumbdrive's Calibre Portable directory on a desktop hard drive or in the cloud.

BR

[CapitalGGeek]

I thought I would kill two birds with one stone - backup my data, and have portable on a thumb drive for my wife & daughter to use.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by CapitalGGeek

I thought I would kill two birds with one stone - backup my data, and have portable on a thumb drive for my wife & daughter to use.

As @BetterRed mentioned in post #3, just do a one-way mirror from your normal Calibre PC install (master) to Calibre Portable on thumb drive (slave) using one of the file sync tools. I highly recommend FreeFileSync, too.

Never do a 2-way sync. That's a recipe for disaster.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by CapitalGGeek

I thought I would kill two birds with one stone - backup my data, and have portable on a thumb drive for my wife & daughter to use.

As well as killing two birds, you probably shoot yourself in the foot.

Whenever your wife or daughter made changes on the thumb drive you would want to synch it back to your desktop - wouldn't you. And that would overwrite any changes you'd made on the desktop instance of the library whilst your wife and daughter were changing the thumb drive instance.

Or only make changes on the thumb drive - i.e. only the person who has it can do any updating. Bit like only having one car key, only the person who has the key can drive the car.

If you want share a common library between yourself, wife, and daughter you ought to consider using the calibre content server. I'm not sure where multi-user metadata update is at with calibre-server. It's either in the pipeline or might already be available.

BR

[CapitalGGeek]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Whenever your wife or daughter made changes on the thumb drive you would want to synch it back to your desktop - wouldn't you. And that would overwrite any changes you'd made on the desktop instance of the library whilst your wife and daughter were changing the thumb drive instance.

Thanks.

I'm not really interested in getting metadata changes from the thumb-drive to the desktop. The desktop should be authoritative.



If I understand @ilovejedd & @BetterRed correctly, then syncing the files in the 'Calibre Library' folder in portable should be sufficient. Does portable scrape the directory structure for new additions at every startup? How would it know that there are new books there?

[PeterT]

Your also be syncing the calibre database each time which is in the top directory of the calibre library. The file structure, files and calibre database all make up the calibre library; all need to be synced to the USB stick.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[theducks]

Originally Posted by CapitalGGeek

Thanks.

I'm not really interested in getting metadata changes from the thumb-drive to the desktop. The desktop should be authoritative.



If I understand @ilovejedd & @BetterRed correctly, then syncing the files in the 'Calibre Library' folder in portable should be sufficient. Does portable scrape the directory structure for new additions at every startup? How would it know that there are new books there?

There is NO SCRAPE.
The DB is the authority on where the books are. This is the reason to NOT use the OS to make individual changes. The PATH to the book is in the DB

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by CapitalGGeek

Thanks.

I'm not really interested in getting metadata changes from the thumb-drive to the desktop. The desktop should be authoritative.



If I understand @ilovejedd & @BetterRed correctly, then syncing the files in the 'Calibre Library' folder in portable should be sufficient. Does portable scrape the directory structure for new additions at every startup? How would it know that there are new books there?

Will wife or daughter add books to the thumb drive? If so, file synching will create mismatches between database and library folders.

One of the major reasons the calibre-server feature exists is to give multiple users access to a common library - which is one of the things you want.

However, if you are disinclined to use calibre-server and you want your wife and daughter to have read-only access to a common library you could make use of the CalibreSpy plugin - it can be run from a batch file.

You could even maintain two copies of Calibre Portable, one for the wife and one for your daughter.

Curious: how big is your library, in terms of books and disk space.

BR

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by CapitalGGeek

If I understand @ilovejedd & @BetterRed correctly, then syncing the files in the 'Calibre Library' folder in portable should be sufficient. Does portable scrape the directory structure for new additions at every startup? How would it know that there are new books there?

As mentioned, Calibre Portable doesn't need to scrape. The library folder is self-contained. All necessary data is already stored inside that folder. metadata.db in particular, which, as the name implies, contains all metadata (bar cover images) and library structure.

Think of it this way, when you do a one-way mirror sync from your PC's main library to the thumb drive's Calibre Portable, you're essentially replacing the library on the thumb drive with the one from your PC. Any changes made on Calibre Portable (new books, metadata changes, etc) go kaput.

[BetterRed]

@ilovejedd - does FFS write anything to the source and target device, I'm thinking of its version history, logs etc.

Goodsynch writes its stuff to hidden directories at the root of the source and destination devices - i.e out of harms way, and where they can do least harm.

However I recall seeing another file sync tool that sprinkled stuff in the directories selected for syncing. So if you mirrored D:\Calibre\Calibre Library to E:\Calibre\Calibre Library, it would write 'control' data into those directories which would generate errors in Check Library. I can't recall if FFS was the culprit or the solution.

BR