Hi,
that's a new feature in cwmr6.
And a very nice one indeed
Incremental backups also was a long due feature request and I will add a feature like that with next gen 4ext.
However please be aware that it's not 20mb per backup as mentioned on many sites.
To give any numbers is nonsense, because it solely depends on what you are doing with your device.
It could be 20mb, but it might only be 5mb or even several 100mbs.
All depends on how much mb of your data have been changed/added since your last backup.
If you store additional 100mb and then make an incremental backup, of course your new backup would be at least 100mb + any other added data.
The new data need to go somewhere afterall
They just don't get copied x times for x backups, but only once.. which is why this is also a little more dangerous:
You shouldn't do just incremental backups only. In order to restore such a backup, all previous backups they built upon must be "healthy" in order to be able to do a proper, full restore. Otherwise a complete restore won't be possible.
Ever had an md5sum mismatch? Especially when your backups are stored on the flaky fat32 file system and on external sdcards, there is a realistic chance that data corruption can happen which then can render your backups useless.
Since data are only stored on the sdcard once, the risk is higher.
So incremental and also differential backups are very nice, but they also have a drawback: data safety is reduced.
I'm still thinking about what would be a good implementation for 4ext recovery.
Differential or incremental backups and how to do it.
I think cwmr6 does cumulative backups since dedupe is mentioned, but I've yet to check.
I'm posting all this because I'd like to know:
Would it be important to you to be able to restore to a previous state inside an incremental backup series?
Or would it be enough to only be able to restore the very last one in a series only?
Say, you start out with your 1st backup on Monday and then add incremental backups on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.
Would it be important to you to not just be able to restore to the last (Sundays) state, but alternatively to the Fridays, Wednesdays or Mondays?
The drawback of being able to restore to previous states in such series of backups is that a bit more space is needed for a backup series and more work in developing that
Me personally, I think being able to restore to the last in a series of backups would be best, but let me say it like this.. if it were like windows system restore, and you are trying to find the last date that you didn't have issues, that may be best. But I suppose the initial backup state would be preserved, no?
The way I can see myself using it, I do the original backup when everything is stable, before flashing something new. If what I am trying to flash doesn't work, I revert.. and I may try again in a few days, which means I do a whole new backup rather than backup all the texts, calls, and other ways I have modified the data. If the changes you're looking into would have be covered, I will definitely buy the app(again!)!
