I don’t mean system files, but your personal and work files. I have been using Mint for a few years, I use Timeshift for system backups, but archived my personal files by hand. This got me curious to see what other people use. When you daily drive Linux what are your preferred tools to keep backups? I have thousands of pictures, family movies, documents, personal PDFs, etc. that I don’t want to lose. Some are cloud backed but rather haphazardly. I would like to use a more systematic approach and use a tool that is user friendly and easy to setup and program.
Borg Backup (specifically using Vorta front end)
Restic. Borg also great.
+1 rsync, to an external harddrive. Superfast. Useful also in case I need a backup of a single file that I changed or deleted by mistake. Work files are also backed up to the cloud on mega.nz, which is very useful also for cross-computer sync. But I don’t trust personal files to the cloud.
Don’t forget that a local backup is as bad as no backup at all in the case of a fire or other disaster. Not trusting the cloud is fine (though strong encryption can make this very safe), but looking into some kind of off site backup is important. Could be as simple as a second hard drive that you swap out weekly stored in a safe deposit, or a nas at a trusted friends house.
Completely agree! I didn’t mention this, but I keep the back-up hard drive in another apartment.
This reminds me of a story that happened in some university in England: they had two backups of some server in two different locations. One day one back-up drive failed, and the second failed the day after. Apparently they were the same brand & model. The moral was: use also different back-up brands or means!
3 2 1 3 different backups 2 different mediums 1 off-site
Haven’t seen that not be good move yet.
I almost never see rdiff-backup in such threads, so I am bringing it up now. Somehow I really like how it works and provides incremental backup with folder structures and file access still accessible directly. Works well enough for me.
I love rdiffbackup.
I use it to backup a 30 TB array and it completes in like 20 minutes if there are no changes.
There’s dozens of us! I started using it while I wrote my thesis, running a backup like every hour while writing.
Absolutely - rdiff-backup onto a local mirror set of disks. As you say, the big advantage is that the last “current” entry in the backup is available just by browsing, but I have a full history just a command away. Backups are no use if you can’t access them, and people really under-rate ease of access when evaluating their backup strategy.
It also works over ssh. :)
Restic and borg are the best I’ve tried for remote, encrypted backups.
I personally use Restic for my remote backups and rsync for my local.
Restic beats out borg for me because there are a lot more compatible storage options.
Switched to Restic because then I don’t need any extra software on the server (Synology NAS in my case).
My local backups are handled by rdiff-backup to a mirror set of disks. That means my data is versioned but easily accessible for immediate restore, and now on three disks (my SSD, and two rotating rust drives). It also makes restores as simple as copying a file if I want the latest version, or an easy command if I want an older version. And testing backups is as easy as a diff command to compare the backup version with the live version.
Having your files just be files in your backup solution is very handy. At work I don’t mind having to use an application like Veeam, because I’m being paid to do that. At home I want to see my backups quickly and easily, because I’d rather be working on my files than wrestling with backup software…
Remote backups are handled by SpiderOak, who have been fine for me for almost a decade. I also use them to synchronise my desktop and laptop computer. On my desktop SpiderOak also backs up some files in an archive area on the rotating rust mirror set - stuff that’s large and I don’t access often, so don’t need to put on my laptop but do want backed up.
I also have a USB thumbdrive that’s encrypted and used when I’m travelling to back up changes on my laptop via a simple rsync copy - just in case I have limited internet access and SpiderOak can’t do its thing…
I did also have a NAS in the mix once, but I realised that it was a waste of energy - both mine and electricity. In normal circumstances my data is on 5 locations (desktop SSD, laptop SSD, desktop mirror set, SpiderOak’s storage) and in the very worst case it’s in two locations (laptop SSD, USB thumbdrive). Rdiff-backup to the NAS was simply overkill once I’d added the local mirror set into my desktop, so I retired it.
I’d added the local mirror set because I was working with large files - data sets and VM images - and backups over the network to the NAS were taking an age. A local set of cheap disks in my desktop tower was faster and yet still fairly cheap.
Here’s my advice for your consideration:
- Simple is better than complicated.
- How you restore is more important than how you backup; perform test restores regularly.
- Performance matters; backups that take ages are backups you won’t run.
- Look to meet the 3-2-1 criteria; 3 copies, on 2 different storage systems, with at least 1 in a different geographic location. Cloud storage helps with this.
Good luck with your backup strategy!
⬆️ for rdiff-backup since it keeps the last backup easily readable.
I had before (and I think I’ll implement it again) snapshot capable filesystem where to I rsynced my stuff. Then once a day did a snapshot of the backups. It has the advantage of all the backups being easily readable as long as your backup filesystem is intact and your kernel can mount it.
I used to be mostly restic but I’ve since moved over to Kopia - having the central server on the nas and shipping those files to B2 is easy enough for my level of laziness.
Kopia repo on a separate disk dedicated to backups. Have Kopia on my servers as well sending to my local s3 gateway and second copy to wasabi.
Duplicacy
KDE user so for my personal files I backup with both Kups and Bups (install both) and you get the choice of cloning type or only changed files with going back in time choices. Integrates into KDE taskbar/system settings.
For redundancy, I back up my main sync folder on the desktop to my laptop using Syncthing over my WiFi/network.
Borg backup (via Pika Backup (Libadwaita gnome app) frontend) to one of my physical drive and also to borgbase.com (free tier 10 gb free)
Borg backup
Rsync
I use dirvish a text based cron enabled rsync front end. Read dirvish.org for details about it.
I use this to clone and hold time based backups to external disks which I can verify or use offsite.
Rock solid for years.
