Backup git repos, git fetch vs git remote update

Question

I want to backup git repos using this SO answer: Backup a GitHub repository

git clone --mirror git://github.com/user/project.git
git fetch

The only difference is I am using git fetch instead of git remote update

Are there any drawback of the two commands? (from the complete backup point of view, e.g. backup all tags, branches)

Answer 1

Basically, unless you setup a specific configuration, git remote updates runs a git fetch against all your remotes.

The man page states

update
Fetch updates for a named set of remotes in the repository as defined
by remotes.<group>. If a named group is not specified on the command 
line, the configuration parameter remotes.default will be used; if 
remotes.default is not defined, all remotes which do not have the 
configuration parameter remote.<name>.skipDefaultUpdate set to true 
will be updated. (See git-config[1]).

In your case, if you didn't define any remotes.<group> nor a remotes.default, and if your only remote is github, running git remote update or git fetch is completely equivalent.