Greetings,
New Restic user here looking for some Windows guidance. Is there a preferred way to mount, browse and selectively restore Windows backups made with Restic? Searching the site, forum and issues is not turning up a best practice.
I use WSL and could mount, browse and restore from there. Would that be a correct and valid approach? Is there a better or preferred way?
Thanks,
Doug
I am not aware of any particular preferred way. As you probably know, restic does use FUSE for mounting the repository as a filesystem, and doesn’t have that support on Windows. There is however a PR at https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/2862 which you can try to see if it works for you - any feedback is very welcome! Otherwise, if the WSL approach works for you, that sure sounds like a good alternative.
I have not tied what you are wondering about but have wondered about it also. Unfortunately everything that I’ve read from Microsoft seems to say the same thing “using files across operating systems is slower than native use.”
WSL1 vs WSL2 says
Blockquote
We recommend against working across operating systems with your files, unless you have a specific reason for doing so. For the fastest performance speed, store your files in the WSL file system if you are working in a Linux command line (Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, etc). If you’re working in a Windows command line (PowerShell, Command Prompt), store your files in the Windows file system.
And there just seems to be many complaints at github github WSL issues
WSL slow disk
and other places regarding WSL and networking ex WSL2 and Windows Fast Start
The number one thing on Windows to do is stop the virus checker from watching Restic.