[wp-hackers] Incremental backup and restore

[Podz]

Chetan Kunte wrote:
 <snippage>
> Scot Merrill wrote:
>> The backup plugin is a convenience for people who need
>> to backup, but are intimidated (or confused) by phpMyAdmin.
> 
> Yes, this *is* the crux of the matter, but not just limited to it. And
> the tribe of such people is going to increase exponentially as
> blogging becomes not just popular, but a way of life and work. And
> when they start adding content to their systems, the database is going
> to become bigger and bigger. It will become so big one day (depending
> upon how active the content creation is) that it will refuse to be
> restored in one piece, whether it is via phpmyadmin or via a future
> plugin. I am very sure you'll start to see this in Support questions
> very soon. 

A few points:
1. Database Content
Logs make that explode in size, not users (generally).
What users need to do is drop all the stats, all the logs and every
table that is not essential if they are either backing up or moving. (I
had someone ask me to cron backup their stats log last week....people
get so retentive about pointless stuff). So the way forward for the vast
majority of users is to educate them about what is needed to get their
blog working and to leave the fluff behind.

2. Restoring in one piece
Doesn't take a lot for that to not happen. Text editor that can handle
huge files, cut / paste / repeat unless it has been exported as tables.
But whose fault is it ? phpmyadmin ? mysql ? If those pieces of code are
widely used then someone somewhere must have a solution - this is not a
WP exclusive.

3. Support Questions
Yes they happen - but it's character encoding more than db size, and db
size is doable. Boring as hell but doable. Move someone's Spanish blog
that's just 2meg uncompressed and you'll probably have a lot more
problems than a 10meg gzipped English blog.

Size just isn't a factor.
phpmyadmin versions, mysql versions, character sets - all 3 mixed
together by different hosts is what makes people frustrated.

P.