How to backup build excluding roms folder

luckyluca

Hello,

First of all happy new year.

I have a 1tb ssd which i'm setting up with retropie as bootable on pi 400.

I'd liked to being able to backup the build as .IMG from time to time, and when I do, exclude the roms folder, in order to limit the backup time and size.

Is this possible to do? and ideally directly from the pi400?

Preferred:
boot < backup
large ext4 < backup excluding roms folder

alternatively:
boot < backup
small ext4 < backup
big ext4 with roms folder < NO BACKUP

Thanks

mitu

An .img backup takes a backup of all filesystem, including the roms folder. It's practical for a sdcard, which has a smaller size, but not for a 1Tb disc.
You could re-partition the disc after installation (with parted) and shrink the system partition (/) to a manageable size (30Gb maybe), create a 3rd partition and then mount it as /home/pi/RetroPie/roms.
This way, you could backup the boot/root partitions as .img files to be able to restore them, but you'd probably need a Linux system to back-up/restore them reliably.
Alternatively, just back-up your files (configurations, ROMs and maybe /opt/retropie) separately, so you can restore them after an installation from scratch.

luckyluca

@mitu said in How to backup build excluding roms folder:

create a 3rd partition and then mount it as /home/pi/RetroPie/roms.
This way, you could backup the boot/root partitions as .img files to be able to restore them, but you'd probably need a Linux system to back-up/restore them reliably.

Thanks, I'm looking at that option ( resizing /, creating an ext4 partition and mounting it as roms, or symlinking to roms). What tool or command would I need to run in order to then backup boot and / as a single .img?
I suppose I would unmount roms first, run the backup/restore, mount roms again.

I looked at dd but it only supports specifying one single partition at a time ( either boot or /, not both).

Best
L

mitu

You could use something like FSArchiver to backup the individual /boot and / partitions (excluding ROMS). dd could be used for individual partitions, from a separate Linux system (/ shouldn't be active when dd is run). FSArchiver is included in the live boot System Rescue image, you can use it to restore/backup from a separate PC, without installing Linux on your PC.