do backup repos contain their own configuration? if not why? export json vs db backup

[CouldBeThis]

forked from #1895 because is offtopic

now that I think about backing up my backup utility... is this information contained in the remote backup itself somehow if you aren't backing up the actual dotfiles?

Like say I was just backing up storage and the system/home dirs got hosed but the partition which was actually being backed up escapes injury. Nothing changes on the actual file structure and backups are not required to be restored. So I reinstall vorta/borg and resume doing backups.

Then I am guess I have to recreate all the includes/excludes and other configs? So maybe it gets done differently. Are the backups still going to be consistent with each other? Or if you look back over time would there be a huge change when the new system is introduced?

If I am understanding correctly, would it make any sense to offer the user to backup these very small files automatically into each repo? Or it that too much babysitting? I would certainly like it to be included. And you might want to refer to it later on, like to see if files are not available because they didn't exist in the first place or because they were not included.

Now that I see there is "export current profile" button which I never noticed before. It creates a json file on a per-profile basis rather than a single db for all profiles. Is there a reason to prefer one kind of the other for backup/restore? I can only think json would be preferable to keep different files apart form each other like for personal or work etc. Precluding that kind of use case do they functional interchangeably?