iPhone backup shootout: iTunes vs. rsync
iTunes' iPhone backup is absolutely horrid. i've just about decided to completely replace it with rsync, so i figured i'd give it one last go. it's been 2 hours since i plugged my phone in and iTunes auto-synced. it's been over a week since my last rsync backup. how do they compare?
time
iTunes backup—crashed after 1.5 hours. resulted in corrupted backup, will not be able to restore from it.
rsync—5 minutes, 32 seconds.
connection
iTunes backup—plug in via dock connector/usb.
rsync—wi-fi.
speed
iTunes backup—USB 2.0 theoretical maximum: 480 Mbits/second. actual speed: approx 2.3 Mbits/sec.
rsync—actual transfer speed: 440 Mbits/sec.
data transferred
iTunes backup— ~16 Gb
rsync— ~155 Mb
data availability
iTunes backup—stored in a single compressed image. not available.
rsync—stored in a standard folder on my data drive. very available.
revision availability
iTunes backup—last backup. available only as a complete reimage, assuming the last backup didn't crash. if last backup crashed (about 66% probability, in my experience), not available at all. ever.
rsync—thanks to the magic of Time Machine, every single sync is backed up. every change. every revision. these backups can be restored piecemeal, as needed.
ease of restoration
iTunes backup—plug in phone. hope iTunes has a valid backup image. curse.
rsync—run the reverse rsync command, go about your merry way. can restore a single app or folder, or the entire iPhone.
triggers
iTunes backup—plug phone into computer, manual sync.
rsync—cron jobs, folder actions, bluetooth proximity, IP address availability, manual sync.
approx wait after plugging phone into computer before i can do anything with my phone other than looking a pretty "syncing" screen
iTunes backup—1.5 hours
rsync—0 seconds
final score
verdict?
wow.
Comments
Now I just have to figure out a way to get music/video content onto my iPod without having to wait through the backup portion of the sync...
Or Apple needs to get a clue and have the backup be optional. What do you think our chances are?
the backup is optional. there's a pref flag you can set:
defaults write com.apple.iTunes DeviceBackupsDisabled -bool trueset it back to true if Apple gets their act together and fixes the backup. otherwise, rsync is your friend :)
Is there a writeup somewhere of how to do this with the iPhone?
not that i know of. maybe i could whip one up when i get a minute...
ease of installation
iTunes -- no installation necessary; backup is available out-of-the-box.
rsync -- installation voids your warranty.
(Scoring for this item depends on how much you value your warranty.)
this is a very valid point. i happen to value my freedom more than my warranty... i bought an iPhone with the intent of jailbreaking it and using MobileTerminal and friends to replace part of the functionality of my laptop.
i'm not sure that i can speak for everyone though.
Are you using firmware 2.0?, so far I am unable to restore using rsync. Backup goes swell but I am unable to use this backup for a complete restore.
I am using the 2.0 firmware. To restore, I reimaged with a pwnd firmware, installed rsync with Cydia, then rsynced back. I couldn't come up with a quicker way to do it than that...
Dear Justin Hileman,
I own an iPod, rather than an iPhone, but I guess the issues of backing up with rsync are somewhat equivalent. My music library therefore resides on my desktop computer and I keep a backup copy of it in an external drive using rsync.
However this is not working quite the way I would have liked for the following reason: iTunes apparently rewrites my music files every once in a while for some obscure reason which may or may not involve an actual change in the file but which definitely alters its modification time. When I run rsync, these files are effectively transfered to the backup directory since rsync assumes these files have genuinely been modified. My music library contains about 80Gb, so the unnecessary waste of time can be quite significant.
I am aware of the "-size-only" option of rsync but I am reluctant to use it because it would cause rsync to miss files on whose id3 tag I have made relevant alterations (recall that changes in id3 tags do not alter file-size).
My precise question: what exactly is iTunes doing by secretly rewriting music files? And, is it possible to prevent it?
Cheers,
Ruy Exel
r@exel.com.br
hey, I repeated the test AFTER the initial copy, and got the same results for iTunes and rsync, could it be that itunes utilizes file copy using rsync ?
Dear Justin,
I'm hoping you could write how you "reverse rsync" to restore the whole partition of the iPhone. I understand the shell commands to do so, but what I don't understand is what mode to put the iPhone in before performing reverse rsync. I'm guessing you have to put it in recovery mode or something, but can you make it connect to wifi and ssh in recovery mode? Please share your experience.
Thanks.
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