Is there a wiki on backup settings?

[mk01]

@alfaromeo

this really needs a wiki - it's topic worth deeper elaboration.

basically snapshot is a "frozen" atomic state of the filesystem (at the time snapshot was taken). by default snapshot's location is the same media as your XBian is running from, so provides no protection against media failure. but in case of bad updates, user misconfiguration or any other system failure you can boot into such "states", or you can rollback them (discard actual system status and make the "snapshot" the actual one). this operations take no longer than few seconds.

.img will create flash-able (bootable) file as 1:1 copy of your system including XBMC Libs & configs including /boot partition. such .img file can be stored externally (different local storage media from rootfs or even over the network).

.img file is nothing else than a container holding another XBian native filesystem to which existing snapshots are copied automatically.

another option is to have a dedicated partition (on local system as again different storage media) what can serve as destination for cloning operations.

if you want NAS with shared folder be used, then choose .img.

or if you don't have any special applications / services running on your XBian install, I would personally go for "backuphome" what doesn't backup unnecessary system files, just XBian home / XBMC libraries and settings. in case of restore needed you would take any existing default .img (from web, xb ian installer etc) and after 1st boot you would just drag & drop this backup file onto XBian icon in network browser. XBian will do the restore and restart XBMC after the operation - providing your old "XBian" after next XBMC start.