Hey all, I wanted to share a small project I finished up this weekend that gives OP-Z users an ultra-portable backup solution using a Raspberry Pi Zero. Simply plug your OP-Z into the Pi Zero and it will automatically create a timestamped full backup of your OP-Z including any projects, sample packs, bounces and configurations.
I was looking for a mobile backup solution and couldn’t find a decent one (as of now for iOS users) so hopefully this helps someone who was searching for something similar.
wonderful…
I’m definitely not into these “things”… so I ask you probably something very stupid… the backups stored in the sd card by the raspberry are normal opz backups, right? I can simply put the sd in a card reader and transfer them on a pc?
the raspberry usually partition the sd cards so if u plug the card into your computer like u normally would u only see a small boot partition and the partition with your storage space is hidden
if u look at the github link OP posted there is a section on accessing the backups
if this was my project, i would use a hub w/ the zero and save the backups to a usb thumb drive also. or use a different pi all together with more than one USB port and do the same.
then it would be simple to get the backups off the PI and onto your computer or wherever u’d like them to go.
@nshe Didn’t really think about it but that’s actually a great idea. Could probably 3D print something that includes the Pi and maybe one of those small lipstick sized chargers together.
@luuca@docshermsticks is right you will only see a boot partition show up. The only way to access them is by logging into the Pi (like SSH)…but that stirred up an idea…I might be able to just setup an extra partition and write to that instead of the Pi filesystem. Then you could pop out your SD card and load into any computer to access the backups. I might mess around with that this weekend
In theory this should work with any Pi but haven’t got the chance to test it yet. So the USB thumb drive concept could work too if you triggered another small script after the backup to see if the USB is plugged in and available.
i’ve swapped cards between different models without any issues.
well except for one time when i went from a zero to the newer ones
which needed the kernel to be updated before it would read the SD card.
So creating another partition would work…but it seems that it would cause issues for Windows users since from what I understand will only mount 1 partition (even if you have multiple partitions to mount). MacOS doesn’t have that problem but I want to make sure this works for everyone.
All that said, what I ended up doing was expanding the “/boot” partition (the one that does mount when the SD is connected) and then updating the code so it’s more flexible and can save there instead.
Shrinking and expanding the Pi partitions is definitely much more involved so what I did instead was create an image from a new clean setup. This way all you have to do is flash it to the SD, pop it into the Pi and you are ready to go. I figure this may also allow people who don’t want to get into the technical details to still be able to use it! (Also, I still have instructions on Github if you do want to setup manually).
This image gives you over 1GB of backup space. If you want more, you can follow the instructions on Github to expand to a larger SD card size.
