32 lines
1.6 KiB
Markdown
32 lines
1.6 KiB
Markdown
[[!meta title="what git-annex is not"]]
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* git-annex is not a backup system. It may be a useful component of an
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[[archival|use_case/bob]] system, or a way to deliver files to a backup
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system.
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For a backup system that uses git, take a look at
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[bup](http://github.com/apenwarr/bup).
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* git-annex is not unison, but if you're finding unison's checksumming
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too slow, or its strict mirroring of everything to both places too
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limiting, then git-annex could be a useful alternative.
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* git-annex is more than just a workaround for git limitations that might
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eventually be fixed by efforts like
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[git-bigfiles](http://caca.zoy.org/wiki/git-bigfiles).
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* git-annex is not some flaky script that was quickly thrown together.
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I wrote it in Haskell because I wanted it to be solid and to compile
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down to a binary. And it has a fairly extensive test suite. (Don't be
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fooled by "make test" only showing a few dozen test cases; each test
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involves checking dozens to hundreds of assertions.)
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* git-annex is not [git-media](https://github.com/schacon/git-media),
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although they both approach the same problem from a similar direction.
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I only learned of git-media after writing git-annex, but I probably
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would have still written git-annex instead of using it. Currently,
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git-media has the advantage of using git smudge filters rather than
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git-annex's pile of symlinks, and it may be a tighter fit for certian
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situations. It lacks git-annex's support for widely distributed storage,
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using only a single backend data store. It also does not support
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partial checkouts of file contents, like git-annex does.
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