Use backrest on laptop

[pmozzati]

Hi to all,
I just landed to backrest, after watching a youtube video of an expert Linux user, who strongly recommended this restic wrapping software.
I was wondering if it is suitable to be used on a laptop, typically not always turned on. I mean, If I set a daily backup of a certain folder, how does it work since It could happen I do not ever use the laptop within a day? Or what if I just use the laptop in the evening.
I used to write a systemd timer unit that trigger a rclone backup once the laptop turned on.
Have you any suggestion for using resbackrest on laptop?
Many thanks in advance.

[garethgeorge]

Backrest takes reasonable steps to be suitable for laptop use. Primarily, backrest will run a backup at the scheduled time or at the next nearest time when the laptop is awake e.g. if the computer is asleep with backrest running in the background during a time when a backup would run, the backup will next run when you open the laptop.

The only big caveat to be aware of is frequently rebooted systems: Backrest always initializes its backup schedule relative to the startup time so it will skip backups if the computer was not powered on when they were scheduled to run (health operations eg check and prune are relative to their last run time so this isn’t a problem there).

[pmozzati]

Many thanks for your quick reply.
I wrote restic instead of backrest in my previous post; my bad.
Unfortunately, my laptop is often powered off when not in use. In my case, It would be useful if the backrest could check its last run, as prune does, and takes a new snapshot if none has been taken within the last day (or something similar).

[garethgeorge]

That makes sense, I think this is a reasonable item for a feature request if you'd like to file one.