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    Minimal set of files and folders required to "backup" my Retropie Arcade Machine?

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    • C
      compiler
      last edited by

      Hi all.

      After several years running a PC inside my Arcade Machine, I finally got rid of the "dinosaur" and managed to put a Raspberry Pi 3B with a HDMI-to-VGA converter. Everything's fine and quite happy with the results.

      My question: I want to regularily BACKUP my system with "rsync" to a remote NAS server. I just want to be able to recover everything quickly just in case the Pi or the USB stick fails. This means reinstalling Retropie from the official image and recover all my roms, save states and configurations (libretro, emulationstation)...

      What's the list of "paths" I should backup to be able to restore Retropie with the same exact configs and roms in a newly flashed retropie image?

      /home/pi/RetroPie/ --> BIOS files and ROMS
      /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/ --> Is this required?
      /etc/emulationstation/ --> ES config and themes?
      /opt/retropie --> should I backup this?

      Any other folder I'm missing?

      Where can I find the core/game presets (buttons, shaders, etc) that I've been saving from inside retroarch?

      mituM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • mituM
        mitu Global Moderator @compiler
        last edited by

        @compiler said in Minimal set of files and folders required to "backup" my Retropie Arcade Machine?:

        /home/pi/RetroPie/ --> BIOS files and ROMS

        Yes, those should be backed up.

        /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/ --> Is this required?

        No, that's the RetroPie script - it's installed as part of the image or installation.

        /etc/emulationstation/ --> ES config and themes?

        Not really needed, unless you've customized the themes there.

        /opt/retropie --> should I backup this?

        Not entirely, only /opt/retropie/configs

        Where can I find the core/game presets (buttons, shaders, etc) that I've been saving from inside retroarch?

        They should be in /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/config/.

        C 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • C
          compiler @mitu
          last edited by compiler

          @mitu Thanks a lot.

          This saves me a lot of time, preparing an rsync just for those folders and ignoring entirely /usr, /bin, etc.

          I also noticed the existence of /home/pi/.emulationstation that includes stuff like the "scraped" game images, but I found it to be a link to /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation .

          I also noticed that the .state files are stored inside the "roms" folders, in the same subfolder than the rom itself.

          Thanks and best regards.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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