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.
Timeshift is nice to make things easy. I simply use good old-fashioned rsync tied to a cron job.
So, just today actually, i wiped ubuntu and isntalled pop_os with btrfs. Basically using this walk through and setup Timeshift to manage snapshots.
https://mutschler.dev/linux/pop-os-btrfs-22-04/
but thats not really a backup.
I have a backup box i use for files with rsync and the like. Need to figure out a full backup method to may backup location though.
Might just setup an ansible deployment and call it a day.
I have to say that I used to be a timeshift fan but I’ve started moving to snapper instead. Both are very similar but with snapper you can have multiple configs, one per sub vol. each with different settings. I like having a separate root and home schedules set up. Means I can restore one or the other independently. Works a treat.
Nice. I’ll check it out for sure. That post I followed also i a link to the authors scripts to run a btrfs snap before apt runs.
Frankly I just moved some configs over before I did the wipe. My Linux desktops aren’t too customized.
I had to work around his how to a bit since I use nvme and a pre-partitioned disk that I had to pre-format lvm to (he used a default install run to pre-format the disks)
For personal files I use Borg (with Vorta) and/or Restic
Restic. Borg also great.
I am using Borg for years. So far, the tool has not let me down. I store the backups on external hard drives that are only used for backups. In addition, I save really important data at rsync.net and at Hetzer in a storage box. Which is not a problem because Borg automatically encrypts locally and for decryption in my case you need a password and a key file.
Generally speaking, you should always test whether you can restore data from a backup. No matter which tool you use. Only then you have a real backup. And an up-to-date backup should always additionally be stored off-site (cloud, at a friend’s or relative’s house, etc.). Because if the house burns down, the external hard drive with the backups next to the computer is not much use.
By the way, I would advise against using just rsync because, as the name suggests, rsync only synchronizes, so you don’t have multiple versions of a file. Which can be useful if you only notice later that a file has become defective at some point.
