At the time I did this on a K12 server, the tables for tracking what courses etc. were messed up. About 3 references were next run dated for next year!!!! Well, that wouldn't do ... one of those courses used daily.
My issue happened to be a digital media course that just kept growing - first noticed when backup was approaching 100Gig! It finally reached 130Gig before I finally had to communicate with school admin and teacher.
Autobackups then broken up into 3 bash shell scripts and used admin/cli/backup.php with options ... small, medium, large ... the large had only 4 courses in it. Couldn't do it daily ... but close enough (day or 2 work lost if a backup had to be used to restore ... never needed).
Retirement ... hmmmm ... fraid am past the 'golden years' of that! We all grow old ... remember that! [Note: so does software!!!!]
Best of luck with your choice!
Hangin' round means I can spot what doesn't work many times cause I've been there done that!
'SoS', Ken