One? Two? Three? More?
I'm talking weekly backups of the full drive. My weekly saved my butt royally, but in looking at the drive they're stored on, I see them back to October. Is that doing anything other than wasting space on the storage drive?
It's depends on the filesystem.
We are talking of a Windows machine?
Or a more general situation ?
Do you want to store DATA only, or SOFTWARE too?
For data (on Windows) I suggest to do something like that
Code:
zpaqfranz a d:\mybackup.zpaq c:\data c:\pippo c:\photo
In this example you will take (forever) everything into d:\mybackup.zpaq
If you want to make an IMAGE of a Windows drive I suggest
http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/index.htm (something like a "ghost") with differential backups and a decimation (take the last X).
If you want to make a copy (of the data) you can adopt an image, for example an encrypted container (truecrypt or veracrypt), to mount on Windows, Linux or whatever you want.
On it you will write the data.
And then you will make a copy of it (unmounted) with zpaq / zpaqfranz.
This way you can be sure that you have obtained an identical (sector-wide) backup while still keeping it on a file.
In this case the use of a container has a double effect: it is always encrypted (this is good), and therefore its copy will also be encrypted.
=====
Real world example (Windows).
Create a (let's say) XGB TC file to store your most sensitive data, mount it to use it in Windows normally (it's practically identical, only slower).
When you want to make a backup you unmount, than
Code:
zpaqfranz a d:\mycontainerbackup.zpaq c:\data\mycontainer.tc -m 0
(-m0 = no compression, useless for encrypted container)
Repeat every time you want, and you will get (into d:\mycontainerbackup.zpaq) as many "snapshots" of your container, ready to be restored, perfect to the single sector.
In this example a 30GB containter with 63 copies in about 40GB
Code:
zpaqfranz v51.27-experimental snapshot archiver, compiled May 26 2021
provona.zpaq:
Block 1 K 30.303 (block/s)
Block 2 K 12.658 (block/s)
63 versions, 1.617 files, 601.840 fragments, 42.649.102.406 bytes (39.72 GB)
Non-latin (UTF-8) 5
Version(s) enumerator
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
< Ver > < date > < time > < added > <removed> < bytes added >
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
00000001 2020-11-27 09:37:36 +00000278 -00000000 -> 31.226.311.999
00000002 2020-11-28 09:34:09 +00000010 -00000002 -> 13.696.770
00000003 2020-11-30 08:46:36 +00000029 -00000005 -> 137.395.696
00000004 2020-11-30 08:56:16 +00000004 -00000000 -> 7.276.531
00000005 2020-11-30 09:13:47 +00000003 -00000000 -> 4.687.403
00000006 2020-11-30 09:20:15 +00000003 -00000000 -> 4.687.514
00000007 2020-11-30 09:21:15 +00000003 -00000000 -> 1.056.495
00000008 2020-11-30 09:23:38 +00000003 -00000000 -> 4.590.014
00000009 2020-11-30 09:25:46 +00000003 -00000000 -> 2.366.787
00000010 2020-11-30 09:27:56 +00000003 -00000000 -> 4.599.789
00000011 2020-11-30 09:32:13 +00000003 -00000000 -> 2.990.775
00000012 2020-11-30 09:33:14 +00000003 -00000000 -> 1.389.823
00000013 2020-11-30 09:35:00 +00000003 -00000000 -> 2.487.966
00000014 2020-11-30 09:36:33 +00000003 -00000000 -> 3.160.000
00000015 2020-11-30 09:38:57 +00000003 -00000000 -> 4.688.022
00000016 2020-11-30 10:03:43 +00000003 -00000000 -> 1.081.892
00000017 2020-11-30 10:04:41 +00000001 -00000000 -> 1.915.078.952
00000018 2020-11-30 10:17:50 +00000001 -00000000 -> 71.130
00000019 2020-11-30 10:21:04 +00000004 -00000000 -> 8.566.138
00000020 2020-11-30 10:27:08 +00000004 -00000000 -> 2.089.289
00000021 2020-11-30 10:35:13 +00000003 -00000000 -> 2.998.117
00000022 2020-11-30 10:37:12 +00000001 -00000000 -> 2.980.974
00000023 2020-11-30 16:21:42 +00000001 -00000000 -> 116.858.335
00000024 2020-12-02 18:00:47 +00000004 -00000001 -> 16.412.348
00000025 2020-12-03 17:58:58 +00000001 -00000000 -> 10.361.612
00000026 2020-12-05 14:23:06 +00000005 -00000000 -> 17.143.226
00000027 2020-12-05 17:29:47 +00000007 -00000000 -> 18.312.906
00000028 2020-12-06 10:39:08 +00000001 -00000000 -> 4.397.887
00000029 2020-12-10 09:02:38 +00000009 -00000005 -> 15.648.768
00000030 2020-12-12 10:28:07 +00000012 -00000000 -> 7.900.375
00000031 2020-12-15 10:08:35 +00000018 -00000000 -> 33.656.848
00000032 2020-12-17 08:49:23 +00000011 -00000001 -> 11.624.550
00000033 2020-12-19 10:12:13 +00000008 -00000000 -> 10.495.324
00000034 2020-12-27 12:55:52 +00000020 -00000000 -> 206.523.162
00000035 2021-01-01 12:25:45 +00000042 -00000001 -> 20.545.680
00000036 2021-01-07 18:30:39 +00000016 -00000001 -> 1.734.563.911
00000037 2021-01-14 12:38:35 +00000013 -00000000 -> 913.554.890
00000038 2021-01-19 09:50:01 +00000017 -00000000 -> 263.208.515
00000039 2021-01-20 18:27:06 +00000018 -00000000 -> 97.674.450
00000040 2021-01-24 14:56:44 +00000006 -00000000 -> 9.138.038
00000041 2021-01-28 13:43:43 +00000010 -00000009 -> 759.198.976
00000042 2021-01-28 13:51:15 +00000001 -00000000 -> 1.790.167
00000043 2021-01-30 13:41:37 +00000006 -00000000 -> 4.761.376
00000044 2021-01-31 17:41:20 +00000001 -00000000 -> 5.743.409
00000045 2021-02-07 15:20:45 +00000684 -00000000 -> 122.078.186
00000046 2021-02-09 10:40:34 +00000001 -00000000 -> 9.795.700
00000047 2021-02-10 18:09:25 +00000006 -00000001 -> 411.219.990
00000048 2021-02-22 14:03:21 +00000007 -00000000 -> 3.393.672.599
00000049 2021-02-26 11:13:55 +00000005 -00000000 -> 3.641.307
00000050 2021-03-05 14:21:27 +00000003 -00000000 -> 11.262.424
00000051 2021-03-05 14:42:13 +00000001 -00000000 -> 1.789.030
00000052 2021-03-22 07:51:53 +00000006 -00000001 -> 145.845.029
00000053 2021-03-30 09:35:10 +00000023 -00000000 -> 5.638.615
00000054 2021-04-11 08:43:23 +00000265 -00000229 -> 283.907.475
00000055 2021-04-11 18:54:52 +00000002 -00000000 -> 1.789.379
00000056 2021-04-12 09:55:21 +00000001 -00000000 -> 1.788.483
00000057 2021-04-12 12:32:17 +00000001 -00000000 -> 1.788.483
00000058 2021-04-17 12:53:56 +00000009 -00000001 -> 2.757.086
00000059 2021-04-17 13:05:21 +00000001 -00000000 -> 74.456.918
00000060 2021-04-17 13:22:28 +00000001 -00000000 -> 2.670.731
00000061 2021-04-30 09:16:44 +00000001 -00000000 -> 170.130.434
00000062 2021-05-03 14:59:42 +00000001 -00000000 -> 82.176.252
00000063 2021-05-24 12:08:22 +00000001 -00000000 -> 288.927.456
At every run ONLY the "sectors" (in fact zpaq blocks of the containers,the explanation would be long) changed will be stored, with the min possible use of media space.
So you don't have to worry about copying "everything" (robocopy, rsync, 7z, rar, whatever), because "everything" is already in the container file.
Of course you can also use vhds, but in my opinion is better to take everything encrypted