Technique or tool to compare backups?
I do a full image backup followed by 6 incremental backups, keeping two complete backup chains.
I'd like to be able to see the differences between backups, either between increments in a single chain, or between the two chains.
I'm really only interested in seeing what files and directories have been added or deleted, not so much in what files have simply been changed.
Any way to do this?
If there was a way to get a straight listing of the contents an individual incremental backup's .tib, or an entire chain, or something in between, captured into a text file, there are lots of tools available to perform these operations. The listing wouldn't even have to be sorted, so long as it contained the full path of each file.
Blundering through the backups with Windows Explorer is sure not the way I'd want to do this. Reverse engineering the format of a .tib is something I'd like to do even less, especially when the backup's been compressed.
Can you use a utility to do this? Maybe something like "Beyond Compare" or "WinDiff" along with mounting the two backups. Mount the two backups, then use the utility which thinks they are just two drives or directory trees.
I completely forgot that I could mount the .tib files!
Never done it, but presumably, once I've done that, I can make any kind of content listings that I want, and manipulate them as needed.
Thanks for the reminder.
Just double-click on a tib to open it or right-click it and select Mount.
Just be aware that this only works for image backups not file-based backups. Do let us know how you make out and what strategy you use. I've heard of people using things like: dir /s /b > files.txt to get a listing, then comparing that to another file using something like sdiff or a side-by-side editor that shows differences like Notepad++.