How are YOU backing up your save files?

Flynn's

As the title states, I'm interested to know how everyone is backing up their saves or syncing between machines.

Unfortunately there is no wiki on good practices or suggestions.

~~Also, where are saved games located? aha. Assuming one is using lr for all their emulators.~~ (Answered)

MikeDave

By default the save files are stored in the same directory as the rom it belongs to. You can change that location by updating retroarch.cfg as pointed out in the Custom pathing for ROMs/savegames thread.

I, personally, wrote scripts for copying .srm and .state files into a "backups" directory. I then use yet another custom script to upload to dropbox. I outlined how I did this in the Cloud Saves via Dropbox? thread.

I also set up file sharing so I can use Finder.

I don't have any automatic syncing or anything like that. It's all manual and as-needed. I'm not convinced that what I'm doing is the best way to do it. I'm super interested to hear what other people are doing.

Flynn's

@MikeDave

Thanks - I'll take a look at that.

I also have a server which runs Bittorrent Sync so if anyone has done something with this I'd be interested to know how you accomplished it.

lilbud

Flashdrive, all i have to do is follow the wiki page. My computer has rom files in about 5 different places. So having them on the flashdrive is easiest. No hunting down files.

tismepaulo

I used this guide http://www.sbprojects.com/projects/raspberrypi/webdav.php to auto mount a webdav connection to my box.com account. Strangely the auto mount works on my Pi Zero but not my Pi 3, no idea why. So I have just edited retroarch.cfg to make all saves and save states go to one place, which is the mounted folder of my Box account

PetroRie

I made a save folder in the rom folder, so I can acces them trough SMB from there it's just the good old copy n paste. It's the fastest and easiest way to do so, just keep it simple.

smartroad

@tismepaulo said in How are YOU backing up your save files?:

I used this guide http://www.sbprojects.com/projects/raspberrypi/webdav.php to auto mount a webdav connection to my box.com account. Strangely the auto mount works on my Pi Zero but not my Pi 3, no idea why. So I have just edited retroarch.cfg to make all saves and save states go to one place, which is the mounted folder of my Box account

Ooo I like that idea! I could use my OwnCloud install and sync between all my RetroPie installs and they would have access to the same save files as well :D

tismepaulo

@smartroad that's exactly what I wanted to achieve as well. I run two Pi systems and also use Retroarch on Android and can now save to one place and pick up the same save game whichever device I'm on. Just need to work out why it won't auto mount on Pi 3 now...

Belowstupid

when I'm moving saves i connect via ssh and move the files to my pc, then to the pi I want them on.
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3194/how-are-you-backing-up-your-save-files/8

bobcat987

Backup by running this on the pi:

find /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ -name "*.srm" -o -name "*.state*" | tar --transform 's|/home/pi/||g' -PcJf retropie_saves.tar.xz -T -

Restore with:

tar -C /home/pi -xJf retropie_saves.tar.xz

I have about 300 MB of saves and the backup took about 5 minutes to run. It runs in about 20 seconds if you cut out the xz compression, but I went from 300 MB to 22 MB with it.