I'd like to be able to backup the Bitcoin Core data directory. I know I can just copy everything except wallet.dat to an external hard drive.
I want to be able to restore it in case of drive crash, catch up, and be able to update the backup with just new blocks, because it would take too long to copy 50+ GB back. Can I do a full folder copy, telling Windows not to replace anything? I think that should work, but there's a block index, and wouldn't keeping the old index with new block data keep Bitcoin Core from knowing about the new blocks I had caught up on?