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Thoughts on Duplicacy for Backups

Sital

Sital

macrumors 68020
Original poster
May 31, 2012
2,146
966
New England
I'm currently using Arq 7 for my online backups to Backblaze B2, however since migrating from my MacBook Pro to my Mac Studio I can't get the Arq backup to run without errors. I've gotten it down to a handful of errors, but they all seem to be the same kind. When trying to backup certain files I get an error saying "The operation couldn’t be completed. Cannot allocate memory". It's not always the same files causing the errors. Sometimes it's my photo library or my Firefox profile or my Messages database, etc.

Anyway, I'm looking into Arq alternatives and am thinking about trying Duplicacy. Does anyone have any experience (positive or negative) with it? Also, if anyone has any thoughts on how to get Arq to run without errors I'm willing to go that route too. Thanks.
 
Arq 7 runs fine for me. Does Arq take a vast amount of RAM? maybe you should contact Arq Support.

Duplicacy is my "alternative" backup tool.

Negatives: The GUI does not give access to all the options in the CLI Duplicacy (but does that matter?). When restoring, getting to the right file/folder is somewhat cumbersome. Arq is a much better GUI interface.
Positive: Fast (probably faster than Arq). Reliable (like Arq). De-dup across whole backup store (Arq is only per backup set). Good support forum.
 
Thanks for the info. Arq is barely using any RAM while running. I just tried re-installing Arq but got similar backup errors. I'll take a closer look at Duplicacy.
 
Sital said:
I made an account first then ran MA.
Click to expand...
There is your problem. When you do that, it causes all kinds of permissions problems.


Read the section in pink on this web site.

Erase your Mac and reset it to factory settings - Apple Support

Use Erase All Content and Settings to quickly and securely erase all of your settings, data, and apps, while maintaining the operating system currently installed.
support.apple.com support.apple.com

If you still have the MBP, do a "Click Erase All Content and Settings." as explained on this support page, then when you first restart, run the import assistant.
 
Weaselboy said:
There is your problem. When you do that, it causes all kinds of permissions problems.


Read the section in pink on this web site.

Erase your Mac and reset it to factory settings - Apple Support

Use Erase All Content and Settings to quickly and securely erase all of your settings, data, and apps, while maintaining the operating system currently installed.
support.apple.com support.apple.com

If you still have the MBP, do a "Click Erase All Content and Settings." as explained on this support page, then when you first restart, run the import assistant.
Click to expand...
Thanks for that link and explanation. I no longer have the MBP so that ship has sailed. Interestingly, Carbon Copy Cloner has no issues.
 
That page I sent you has some tips on how you might be able to fix the permissions issues. Worth a try I suppose.
 
Weaselboy said:
That page I sent you has some tips on how you might be able to fix the permissions issues. Worth a try I suppose.
Click to expand...
That seems like alot of work, especially not knowing if that will fix the issue and when everything other than Arq is working fine. I'm not so enamored with Arq that I feel the need to try and keep it at any cost. I'm going to run a Duplicacy backup and see if that completes without any errors. If it doesn't I'll just keep keep a second CCC backup offsite (I may just do that instead, anyway).

But I really do appreciate your time and help with this. I'll update once Duplicacy has finished running.
 
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Sital said:
I just tried re-installing Arq but got similar backup errors. I'll take a closer look at Duplicacy.
Click to expand...
You would need to uninstall Arq first. And by uninstall I mean deleting all the folders it has created in ~/Library and /Library. Then install Arq again.
 
gilby101 said:
You would need to uninstall Arq first. And by uninstall I mean deleting all the folders it has created in ~/Library and /Library. Then install Arq again.
Click to expand...
That's what I had tried to do. Whenever I uninstall an app I try to delete the associated files too. After my initial attempt (with AppCleaner) I noticed that my activity logs were still showing in the Arq window. With a little more searching I discovered that Arq has it's own uninstaller. I used that and then redownloaded Arq and it was a brand new installation.

I decided to just try backing up my photo library last night since that seemed to consistently be a source of error and it completed with no errors. I'm now doing a separate backup of the rest of my home folder so I'll see how that goes, but I'm pretty confident it will be error-free.
 
This kind of turned into an Arq thread, but since I created it to get thoughts on Duplicacy I will add that I did start a Duplicacy backup but ended up aborting it because I found the speed to be quite slow. From my admittedly limited use I liked Duplicacy's GUI better than Arq's, but it seems like Arq's logs are more easily accessible.
 
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