Hi
Tell me, what is the difference between compact export and export verbose?
Compact shows only changed non-default values, verbose shows all. If you tried both, you must have noticed that verbose has much more stuff.
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Yes, I noticed.
And how to produce more correctly? If this configuration is restored to the same device or to another (even with the hardware difference)
Both compact and verbose exports are correct. But using them for restoring to same or another device is a little more complicated:
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Neither of them contains everything (at least users and certificates are missing), so you can’t use export as reliable backup.
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As RouterOS evolves, some parts can change and exported commands from one version may be incompatible with another. It doesn’t happen very often, but it’s a possibility. But as long as you restore to same or similar version, you should be fine.
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When restoring to another device, there can be some settings that you might not want to restore, e.g. manually changed MAC address for interface. It’s a problem especially if you want to clone configuration to more than one device. Of course in case of completely different device you can have problem with number of ports, etc…
This is understandable, the question is how best to perform a backup copy? Or is it 100% not important?
It depends on what you want to protect yourself from.
If you fear that you might make a mistake, break your config, and need to restore it, use backup (/system backup). You’ll also be able to restore it on another device, if the original one blows up. But don’t use it as source for many clones. Also it’s a question how well will it restore to another device. I remember that it messed up order of ports for me, when I restored it on another device, even though it was the same model (but it might be outdated info, because it’s been quite some time since I last did it; test it yourself if you can).
If you want to have more control over your backups (see what’s inside, compare two different ones), use export (/export). That’s what I use. It doesn’t contain users accounts (but there’s usually just one, so no biggie for me) and certificates (most of my routers don’t have any, but it’s far from ideal). Hopefully one day I’ll be lucky and my wish will come true: Suggestion: Backup improvements
If you want to get most out of it, use both backup and export.
I no longer understand the meaning and difference in exports, how best to save the settings before the firmware …
For the same device?!
Use backup and not export, as sob already wrote.
https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Configuration_Management#System_Backup
For this and for others (maybe tomorrow the router will stop working and have to buy a new one)
Some devices allows you to make multiple partitions with different software versions and failover booting. Very handy for configuration backup…