Re: using subversion as a workstation backup mechanism

I read the FAQ but I'm not sure I agree that its a 'bad idea'. It won't do what you would want to do 'efficiently' on a move or copy but its no worse than any backup solution I've seen.

Our current backup solution is to run a script at login that does an 'xcopy' of C:\Backup with some options to limit it to new or changed files. The problem is that the network overhead is huge compared to using Subversion to do the same thing.

Tim

----- Original Message ----
From: Ryan Schmidt <subversion-2006Q1@ryandesign.com>
To: Tim Harvey <tim_harvey@yahoo.com>
Cc: users@subversion.tigris.org
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 3:13:38 AM
Subject: Re: using subversion as a workstation backup mechanism

On Mar 13, 2006, at 22:13, Tim Harvey wrote:

> - automate a script that runs nightly (via task scheduler) on the
> user workstation that does the following:
> - svn add all new files
> - svn del all missing files
> - svn commit
>
> Does anyone see any issues with this? [snip]

That's a bad idea:

http://subversion.tigris.org/faq.html#wc-change-detection

> - have other people implemented automated backup mechanisms using
> this concept

I would recommend looking for software designed to back up
workstations, and not try to make a revision control system do this.
Received on Tue Mar 14 15:52:13 2006