Before uploading any changes anywhere, Arq creates local copies of all to-be-uploaded files. So in theory the backup should be exactly the state of all files in the moment the backup run started. If DEVONthink was open at the time, the files in the backup will represent a currently opened database so on restore you’d e.g. be asked if the database is still in use.
However, as DEVONthink tries to ensure a proper state of the files on disk at any time the risk of having a half-baken backup should be minimal. @cgrunenberg, please correct me if I’m wrong here.
That could be an additional tip: Kick off the Arq backup as the last thing before shutting everything down in the evening (or morning, when you’re a vampire ).
I started reading about how it’s ‘not safe’ backing up native databases to a cloud location, and panicked - until I read the bit about Arq being safe for this.
But, I’d like to verify that my method is safe. I have a 2TB account with Dropbox, so I have lots of space there. What happens here is that a shell script fires in the night and gets Arq to do a backup to its Dropbox location (which is hidden from the Finder by the Dropbox app’s ‘selective sync’ preferences).
Part of Arq’s sync is the entire DT3 ‘Databases’ folder (unzipped). So is this OK?
I know Arq has its own scheduling, but I like to have it backup precisely after my nightly startup disk clone, the duration of which is variable, so when that ends it fires the script, and then all my backups are done.
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