Simple Backups guide for All the Mods 10 2.12

Simple Backups is a small utility mod that does exactly what the name says: it creates scheduled backups of your world. You tell it how many backups to keep and how much storage they're allowed to take up, and it handles the rest, deleting the oldest files once those limits are reached.^[1]

The pack ships version 1.21-4.0.7, and it's been part of the pack for a long while now, included since 0.52 or earlier.^[2]

This one is for anyone running a world they'd rather not lose. The mod is meant to be used on the server side, so it's aimed at server owners and at your own singleplayer world, which runs an internal server anyway.^[1]

Where it fits in progression

Nowhere, and that's the point. Simple Backups adds no items, no blocks and no recipes, so there's nothing to craft and nothing to unlock. It sits in the background from your first night in a dirt hut all the way through to the endgame, quietly keeping copies of your world safe.^[1]

The mod is not on the ATM Star quest path, and no quests in the pack involve it. Think of it as insurance rather than content: you won't interact with it while playing, but you'll be very glad it's there the day a chunk corrupts or an automation experiment eats your base.^[1]

Unverified The pack's exact backup interval, retention count and storage cap could not be confirmed from the available sources. Check the mod's config file in your instance folder for the values this pack ships with.

Same as in the All the Mods 10 8.1 guide

Good news: Simple Backups is a set-it-and-forget-it mod. Its job is to create scheduled backups of your world, so there is no long crafting chain to get through before it's useful.^[1]

What the mod does for you

• It creates backups on a schedule, so you don't have to remember to do it yourself.^[1]
• You can define how many backups should be kept.^[1]
• You can also define the maximum amount of storage the backups may use. When limits are reached, the oldest backup files are deleted first.^[1]

Your first steps

1. Install the mod on the server. It works server-side only, so players don't need to do anything on their end.^[1]
2. Decide how many backups you want to keep. More backups means more restore points to go back to.^[1]
3. Decide on a storage cap so backups never eat your whole disk. Because the oldest files are deleted first, you always keep the newest ones.^[1]

Unverified I couldn't confirm any craftable items, quests, in-game tooltips or config option names for this mod in this pack, so there are no recipes to show here. Check the mod's config file on your server to see the exact settings and defaults the pack uses for the schedule, backup count and storage limit.

Simple Backups has no machines, blocks or items at all. It's a server-side mod that runs scheduled world backups in the background, and everything it does is driven by one config file. In this pack it's switched on out of the box, so backups start happening as soon as your world is loaded.^[1][3]

The backup schedule

The core loop is a timer. The pack sets timer to 120, which is the number of minutes between two backups, so you get a fresh backup every two hours of runtime. The option accepts anything from 1 to 32,767 minutes, so 5 gives you a backup every five minutes, 60 every hour and 1,440 once a day.^[3]

By default that timer follows real world time. If you flip useTickCounter to true, the mod uses an internal tick counter instead and converts the timer value into ticks. The pack leaves this false, which is usually what you want: on a lagging server the tick counter drifts, and an average of 10 FPS would double the real time between two backups.^[3]

noPlayerBackups is false in this pack, so the mod skips backups when nobody is online. That keeps an idle server from filling its disk with identical copies of a world nothing has touched.^[3]

Full versus incremental backups

backupType decides what actually gets written. The pack uses FULL_BACKUPS, meaning every run copies the whole world. The two other choices are incremental: MODIFIED_SINCE_LAST only stores files that changed since the last (partial) backup, and MODIFIED_SINCE_FULL stores everything that changed since the last full one.^[3]

If you switch to one of the incremental modes, fullBackupTimer controls how often a proper full backup is forced anyway. It's set to 525,960 minutes here, which is the mod's default of roughly once a year, and it can go from 1 up to 5,259,600. When that many minutes have passed, the next scheduled backup becomes a full one. With FULL_BACKUPS selected the setting has nothing to do, since every backup is already complete.^[3]

Retention and disk limits

Two separate limits prune old files, and whichever one trips first wins. backupsToKeep is 10 in this pack, the mod's own default, so you keep the ten most recent backups; it accepts 1 to 32,767. maxDiskSize is set to "25 GB", and once the backup folder grows past that the oldest files get deleted. The value is written as a number, a space, and a storage type, with B, KB, MB, GB and TB all valid.^[3]

With a two hour timer and ten kept backups, you're holding roughly the last twenty hours of playtime, assuming the 25 GB ceiling doesn't cut in first.^[3]

compressionLevel is left at -1, the default. You can set it anywhere from 0 to 9: 0 is no compression, which is light on the CPU but eats a lot of space, and 9 is the best compression, using the most CPU and the least space.^[3]

Where the files go

outputPath is "simplebackups", so that's the folder the archives land in. createSubDirs is true, which generates a separate sub-directory per world. That's worth knowing before you tune the limits: with sub-directories on, both backupsToKeep and maxDiskSize are calculated for each sub-directory individually.^[3]

Notifications and turning it off

sendMessages is true, so you get an in-game message while a backup is being made. mod_compat.mc2discord is also true, which forwards those backup notifications to Discord through mc2discord if that mod is installed on your server.^[3]

The master switch is enabled, which the pack leaves at true. Set it to false and no backups are made at all, regardless of every other setting.^[3]

One last thing about scope: the mod is designed to be used server side only. There's no client-side interface, no GUI and no automation hooks to build around it, so tuning the config file is the whole of the mechanic.^[1][3]

Simple Backups is configured entirely through one file, config/simplebackups-common.toml, and this pack leaves most of it close to the mod's defaults. Here are the knobs worth knowing about before you go editing anything.^[3]

How often backups run

The big one is timer, which this pack sets to 120: the number of minutes between two backups, so you get one every two hours. That matches the mod default of 120, and you can set anything from 1 to 32767 minutes. For reference, 5 means every five minutes, 60 means hourly and 1440 means once a day.^[3]

useTickCounter is false in this pack, so the timer runs on real world time. If you switch it to true, the timer is converted to ticks instead, which means a lagging server stretches the gap between backups: an average of 10 FPS would roughly double the time between them.^[3]

noPlayerBackups is false here, so backups only happen when somebody is online. Flip it to true if you want your server to keep making backups on an empty world.^[3]

How much disk space it uses

backupsToKeep is 10 in this pack, the mod default, meaning the ten most recent backup files are kept. You can push that anywhere from 1 to 32767, but remember each one is a full copy of your world.^[3]

maxDiskSize is set to "25 GB". Once the backup folder grows past that, the oldest files get deleted. If you change it, it has to be written as a number, a space, then the storage type: B, KB, MB, GB or TB.^[3]

compressionLevel sits at -1, the mod's default setting. Valid values run from 0, which does no compression at all (light on CPU, heavy on disk), up to 9 for the best compression (heavy on CPU, light on disk).^[3]

Backup type

backupType is "FULL_BACKUPS" in this pack, so every backup is a complete copy. The other options are MODIFIED_SINCE_LAST, which only saves files changed since the last partial backup, and MODIFIED_SINCE_FULL, which saves everything changed since the last full backup.^[3]

If you switch to one of the partial modes, fullBackupTimer decides how long the mod waits before forcing a fresh full backup. It is 525960 minutes here, the mod default, which works out to about once a year.^[3]

Messages and output

• enabled is true. Set it to false and no backups are made at all.^[3]
• sendMessages is true, so you get an in-game message while a backup is being made.^[3]
• outputPath is "simplebackups", the folder the backups are written to.^[3]
• mod_compat.mc2discord is true, which sends backup notifications to Discord, but only if mc2discord is actually installed.^[3]

All the Mods 10 2.12 ships Simple Backups 1.21-4.0.7. The mod has been in the pack since All the Mods 10 0.32 or earlier.^[2]

Mod changelog highlights

• 1.21-4.0.4: Traditional Chinese (zh_tw.json) translation added.^[4]
• 1.21-4.0.6: a tick counter option was added.^[5]
• 1.21-4.0.7: Japanese translation added. This is the version in the pack.^[2][6]

Unverified Pack changelog entries for Simple Backups would live in the All the Mods 10 release changelogs, and the sources here do not show any, so the notes above come only from the mod's own changelogs.