From 4a51ddf741b58430b8c24db82b61ac4ce9c5f284 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Alexander Neumann Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2017 20:46:26 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] Add section to the manual about same directory names Related to #652 --- doc/Manual.md | 9 +++++++++ 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+) diff --git a/doc/Manual.md b/doc/Manual.md index b7feb7b1f..3933203e5 100644 --- a/doc/Manual.md +++ b/doc/Manual.md @@ -216,6 +216,15 @@ snapshot 31f7bd63 saved In fact several hosts may use the same repository to backup directories and files leading to a greater de-duplication. +Please be aware that when you backup different directories (or the directories +to be saved have a variable name component like a time/date), restic always +needs to read all files and only afterwards can compute which parts of the +files need to be saved. When you backup the same directory again (maybe with +new or changed files) restic will find the old snapshot in the repo and by +default only reads those files that are new or have been modified since the +last snapshot. This is decided based on the modify date of the file in the +file system. + You can exclude folders and files by specifying exclude-patterns. Either specify them with multiple `--exclude`'s or one `--exclude-file`