Backup and recovery strategies in Raspberry Pi - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Backup and Recovery Strategies on Raspberry Pi

📖 Scenario: You have a Raspberry Pi that stores important files. To keep your data safe, you want to create a simple backup system that copies files to a backup folder. Later, you want to recover files from the backup if needed.

🎯 Goal: Build a Python program that backs up files from one folder to another and can restore files from the backup folder back to the original folder.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a list of filenames representing files on the Raspberry Pi

Create a backup folder path as a string

Write code to copy files from the original folder to the backup folder

Write code to restore files from the backup folder to the original folder

Print the list of files after backup and after recovery

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Backing up important files on a Raspberry Pi helps protect data from accidental loss or hardware failure.

💼 Career

Understanding backup and recovery is essential for system administrators, developers, and anyone managing devices or servers.

1

Create the list of files and original folder path

Create a list called files with these exact filenames: 'config.txt', 'data.csv', 'image.png'. Also create a string variable called original_folder with the value '/home/pi/data'.

Raspberry Pi

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use square brackets to create the list and assign the folder path as a string.

2

Create the backup folder path

Create a string variable called backup_folder and set it to '/home/pi/backup'.

Raspberry Pi

files = ['config.txt', 'data.csv', 'image.png']
original_folder = '/home/pi/data'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Assign the backup folder path as a string to the variable backup_folder.

3

Write code to back up files

Use a for loop with variable file to iterate over files. Inside the loop, create a string source by joining original_folder and file with a slash. Similarly, create a string destination by joining backup_folder and file with a slash. Then, print Backing up {source} to {destination} using an f-string.

Raspberry Pi

files = ['config.txt', 'data.csv', 'image.png']
original_folder = '/home/pi/data'
backup_folder = '/home/pi/backup'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use string concatenation with '/' to build file paths. Use an f-string to print the message.

4

Write code to recover files and print final output

Use a for loop with variable file to iterate over files. Inside the loop, create a string backup_path by joining backup_folder and file with a slash. Similarly, create a string restore_path by joining original_folder and file with a slash. Then, print Restoring {backup_path} to {restore_path} using an f-string.

Raspberry Pi

files = ['config.txt', 'data.csv', 'image.png']
original_folder = '/home/pi/data'
backup_folder = '/home/pi/backup'
for file in files:
    source = original_folder + '/' + file
    destination = backup_folder + '/' + file
    print(f"Backing up {source} to {destination}")
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Repeat the loop for recovery. Use f-strings to print the restore messages.