I’m trying to find a good method of making periodic, incremental backups. I assume that the most minimal approach would be to have a Cronjob run rsync periodically, but I’m curious what other solutions may exist.

I’m interested in both command-line, and GUI solutions.

  • inex@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    33
    ·
    1 year ago

    Timeshift is a great tool for creating incremental backups. Basically it’s a frontend for rsync and it works great. If needed you can also use it in CLI

  • mariom@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    1 year ago

    Is it just me or the backup topic is recurring each few days on !linux@lemmy.ml and !selfhosted@lemmy.world?

    To be on topic as well - I use restic+autorestic combo. Pretty simple, I made repo with small script to generate config for different machines and that’s it. Storing between machines and b2.

  • PlexSheep@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    1 year ago

    I have a bash script that backs all my stuff up to my Homeserver with Borg. My servers have cronjobs that run similar scripts.

    • SALT@lemmy.my.id
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Back In times

      Isn’t timeshift have same purpose, or it’s just matter of preference?

      • NoXPhasma@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yes, it is the same purpose, kinda. But timeshift runs as a cron and allows for an easy rollback, while I use BIT for manual backups.

  • kittyrunningnoise@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    1 year ago

    I like rsnapshot, run from a cron job at various useful intervals. backups are hardlinked and rotated so that eventually the disk usage reaches a very slowly growing steady state.

    • Jajcus@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      1 year ago

      Restic does not need rclone and can use many remote storage services directly. I do restic backups directly to Backblaze.

  • thegreenguy@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    1 year ago

    Pika Backup (GUI for borgbackup) is a great app for backups. It has all the features you might expect from backup software and “just works”.

  • elscallr@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    9
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Exactly like you think. Cronjob runs a periodic rsync of a handful of directories under /home. My OS is on a different drive that doesn’t get backed up. My configs are in an ansible repository hosted on my home server and backed up the same way.

  • Jajcus@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    1 year ago

    Kopia or Restic. Both do incremental, deduplicated backups and support many storage services.

    Kopia provides UI for end user and has integrated scheduling. Restic is a powerfull cli tool thatlyou build your backup system on, but usually one does not need more than a cron job for that. I use a set of custom systems jobs and generators for my restic backups.

    Keep in mind, than backups on local, constantly connected storage is hardly a backup. When the machine fails hard, backups are lost ,together with the original backup. So timeshift alone is not really a solution. Also: test your backups.

    • jamiehs@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’ve used restic in the past; it’s good but requires a great deal of setup if memory serves me correctly. I’m currently using Duplicati on both Ubuntu and Windows and I’ve never had any issues. Thanks for sharing your experience though; I’ll be vigilant.

    • Restic to B2 is made of win.

      The quick, change-only backups in a digit executable intrigued me; the ability to mount snapshots to get at, e.g., a single file hooked me. The wide, effortless support for services like BackBlaze made me an advocate.

      I back up nightly to a local disk, and twice a week to B2. Everywhere. I have some 6 machines I do this on; one holds the family photos and our music library, and is near a TB by itself. I still pay only a few dollars per month to B2; it’s a great service.