git-svn on Windows and Robocopy

So...git clones of git-svn repositories aren't recommended. (Neither are fetches between git-svn clones. All collaboration should happen through the Subversion server.) Clones don't include the metadata that links the git and Subversion histories. However, unless commits in local branches are backed up elsewhere, work could be lost when catastrophe strikes the lone copy of those commits.

As decentralized version control, git's information is self-contained in the ".git" subdirectory of the repository. Thus creating a backup is straightforward: duplicate that subdirectory. But the common copy commands are wasteful and unintelligent. Must one overwrite everything every time? What about data that's no longer necessary and should be deleted in the backup location as well?

Fortunately, there has been a ready command available in Windows: Robocopy. In this case, it's executed with the /MIR switch. Between git's filesystem-based design (i.e. no database dependencies or complicated binary coding) and Robocopy's smarts, incremental changes to the git-svn repository usually result in minimal work performed during subsequent calls to Robocopy.

A developer could also mirror the entire contents of the working directory, but the pattern of making many small local commits in the course of a workday means that at any time there are few uncommitted changes in the working directory. At the time that the commits will be pushed to Subversion, an interactive rebase beforehand ensures that the "noise" of the numerous commits won't be preserved in the permanent version control record of the project.