Backup permissions + backup to non-native file system

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by Defenestration, Oct 16, 2018.

  1. Defenestration

    Defenestration Registered Member

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    I have Mac/Windows dual boot system with each system having a separate data partition formatted as native file system (ie. HFS+ for Mac and NTFS for Windows). For backup purposes, I thought I'd split an external drive into two partitions - HFS+ for Mac backup and NTFS for Win backup. As I also backup the Mac Users folder, I know some of those need permissions to be kept, which requires an HFS+ partition.

    However, most of the files/folders being backed up are simply data (ie. permissions are not particularly necessary. Because of this, I'm thinking of changing my backup drive (and possibly internal data partitions) to have a much smaller HFS+ partition, mainly for the Users folder, with the remaining space having an NTFS partition for all other data (both Mac and Win). This solves the problem of wasted data partition space when one of the systems has much more data than the other (eg. 80% data for Mac and 20%), as all data goes into one big partition. NOTE: I use Paragon's NTFS for Mac driver to access NTFS partitions on Mac.

    Do people normally backup permissions ?

    Any comments/suggestions/alternatives about the above/not backing up the permissions for data files would be appreciated.
     
  2. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Defenestration,

    Would an exFAT partition work? Both OS can use exFAT but I don't have any idea about Mac permissions with exFAT.
     
  3. pandlouk

    pandlouk Registered Member

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    exFat cannot retain file permissions.
    @Defenestration how do you perform the backup? If I'm not mistaken both paragon and tuxera ntfs can retain the file permissions when you copy a file from hfs+ to ntfs.

    ps. I own both paragon and tuxera but I prefer tuxera (40% discount at the moment with lifetime upgrades and you can use it on every mac you own). Paragon is a bit faster but I prefer stability over speed.
     
  4. pandlouk

    pandlouk Registered Member

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    I would split the external drive in 3 partitions. 1 HFS+ small partition for backing up the osx, ! small ntfs partition for backing up windows and 1 large ntfs or exfat for copying/backing-up personal files, photos, music, videos, etc.

    Panagiotis
     
  5. Defenestration

    Defenestration Registered Member

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    I used exFAT a while ago for one of my disks and found that most disk utilities don't support it very well for things like resizing partitions (although just found a free tool called DiskGenius which supports resizing exFAT), which was a pain when I wanted to do something like that (can't remember exactly). Because of this, I made a note not to use exFAT again. However, support for exFAT seems to have improved ith some tools now, so I may consider exFAT again as it removes the need for third party file system driver. NTFS does seem more resilient to permanent corruption though.

    For system partitions, I create backup image with Terabyte's IFL. For Mac Users folder, which is on separate Mac Data partition, I'm pretty sure some of the files/folders need to keep the extended attributes for it to work properly after restoring from backup. For the rest (text, spreadsheets, docs, media files, project files etc.), I just need the data conatined in the file (ie. extended attributes do not need to be backed up).

    For backup, I initially used Beyond Compare and a duplicate finder to create one master backup of my data (I had various duplicate backups dotted around), which is just a straight copy of files/folders. However, I'm now considering using Syncovery to automate the backups (again as straight file/folder copies, but probably with versioning) when the backup drive is attached. Another couple of options I've looked at is to use RAR to create compressed backups and also a nifty tool called Duplicacy, which is free for command-line personal usage and has powerful data de-duplication (it's like Tarsnap but can also be used locally). All three of these tools are cross-platform, which is handy because sometimes I may want to run from within Mac or Win (and possibly later Linux).

    Tuxera's handling of extended attributes is better as it stores them in NTFS ADS instead of littering the NTFS partition with lots of ._ files. It also has crash support/recovery, so you could supposedly disconnect an external disk and it won't end up corrupted (or can at least recover).

    However, Paragon is MUCH faster IMO (did my own testing). A couple of posted benchmarks by someone else confirms the same https://www.alexwhittemore.com/ntfs-on-macos-sierra-paragon-or-tuxera/ https://www.alexwhittemore.com/ntfs-on-macos-paragon-or-tuxera-round-two-high-sierra/

    In my experience, Paragon has been quite reliable, although on one occasion all my files disappeared from a volume, but it had two folders in it's place "found.001" and "found.002". When I opened one of them, it had the complete missing folder structure with all the files. I'm guessing NTFS got corrupted somehow and this was part of the NTFS recovery.

    Thanks for headsup about 40% discount - I may just pick it up.

    Hmmm.... Decisions, decisions...
     
  6. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    The TeraByte apps now have full support for exFAT.
     
  7. Defenestration

    Defenestration Registered Member

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    Just checked the changelog for BIBM and see that the latest 1.52 update has "Added support for exFAT.". I assume this means in the partition manager, as well as the imaging component ?
     
  8. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Yes, you have always been able to slide/image/restore these partitions and now you can create/resize them.
     
    Last edited: Oct 17, 2018
  9. pandlouk

    pandlouk Registered Member

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    @Defenestration IFL can place the images in all the supported files systems, so for imaging backups you can use whatever filesystem you prefer.
    For backups I use duplicati for more than 5 years and it never let me down.
    I do not use usb3 ssds as backup drives so never tested their speed with either tuxera or paragon. the main difference between them is that tuxera is a user space driver while paragon ntfs is a kernel mode driver.
    https://www.paragon-software.com/technologies/kernel-mode/
    I prefer using default system calls and avoiding kernel panics so tuxera was the obvious choice for me.
     
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