May I merge several increment backups to one?

[Andrew Gideon]

On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 08:47:42 +0800, woo robbin wrote:

> How can I merge the two increment backups into one directory,say
> /backupdir/increment ?


I suggest you look into exploiting the --link-dest option in your backups.
Using this, each backup has the performance of an incremental (both in
terms of network and disk space utilization) but produces a complete
snapshot as if it had been a full.  This is achieved by hard-linking back
to the previous snapshot for any files not changed since that previous
snapshot.

Because these are hard links, it is safe to remove any previous snapshot;
it won't render a later snapshot unusable.  

Most, if not all, of the issues associated with incremental backups
disappear using this scheme, yet the performance is still
incremental-like.  And because complete snapshots are always produced,
there's no need for an occasional full backup (excluding the first backup
of any volume, of course).

	- Andrew