--backup requires remote connection?

[Sean M. Kaiser]

Does the --backup, --backup-dir set require that either then source or
target be a remote connection?

Test folder hierarchy:

/Users/localskaiser/source/myfile.txt
/Users/localskaiser/source/a/b/c/newfile.txt

/Users/localskaiser/target
/Users/localskaiser/archive

I can not get the following command to work (after running it once, and
then modifying newfile.txt):

[skaiser-pbg4:~] localska% /usr/local/bin/rsync --delete --backup
--backup-dir=/Users/localskaiser/archive -a /Users/localskaiser/source
/Users/localskaiser/target
stat "/Users/localskaiser/archive/source/a/b/c/newfile.txt" failed: No
such file or directory
rsync error: some files could not be transferred (code 23) at main.c(639)

However, this command works (after running it once, and then modifying
newfile.txt):

[skaiser-pbg4:~] localska% /usr/local/bin/rsync --delete --backup
--backup-dir=/Users/localskaiser/archive -a skaiser at rsync::skaiser/current
/Users/localskaiser/target

I am running RsyncX 2.1 (rsync 2.6.0 protocol version 27) on both the
local and rsync server machines.

Thanks,
Sean Kaiser