Backup pipeline

This page explains the internal phases so you can interpret progress and logs.

1) Preparation

• Reads the active destination settings.
• Resolves network mounts, if configured.
• Validates the backup path and available space.
• For archive-mode uploads, validates whether checkpoint retry can resume from a preserved partial payload.

2) Copy phase

• Copies data to the destination using the best available method:
  • Local disk: optimized copy with multi-threaded file operations.
  • Network share: prefers rsync delta when available and tuned copy flags.
• Progress reports include file counts, speed, and ETA.

For encrypted archive mode:

1. VaultSync compresses the project into a local temporary archive.
2. It encrypts that archive locally into data.vse.
3. It uploads only data.vse to the destination.
4. It copies the non-secret crypto descriptor and cleans the local temporary workspace.

See Backup encryption for setup, password storage, opening, restore, and format details.

3) Verification and hashing

• Hashing ensures data integrity and supports snapshot comparisons.
• These steps may run after the copy phase to keep backups fast.
• A later Recovery drill can re-read bounded stored content and compare size and SHA-256 values with the recorded snapshot.

4) Post-backup actions

• Updates snapshot metadata and UI status.
• Logs results for troubleshooting.
• Exports metadata and history where configured and records retry or checkpoint diagnostics for support bundles.

Integrity guardrails

• Startup consistency checks run separately from backup execution and persist a summary for diagnostics.
• Retention preflight preserves protected points and the newest recovery point with a passing byte-level proof.
• Repair flows are deterministic; VaultSync only applies exact remaps.

How to read logs

• Look for Preparing destination, Copying, and Verification entries.
• For network shares, additional lines identify mount resolution and path selection.