Answers to: Looking for strategy on backing up data (linux folders/files)

Answer by Robert Bakaric

Robert Bakaric — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 07:53:38 -0400

Well,

If you are a Perl oriented person then http://search.cpan.org/~lbrocard/Dackup-0.44/lib/Dackup.pm is your friend. i use it for everything and anything. just make a backup aplication (20 lines of code) and set it under crone and all problems solved. (for me at least)

Answer by craigevil

craigevil — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 01:47:53 -0400

rdiff-backup used with http://smxi.org/site/about.htm#rbxi

Answer by trashbird1240

trashbird1240 — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 19:49:23 -0400

Tar is not meant for incremental backups, unless you're using tape. Rsync is the best solution I've found. I have a script that has worked well for me for years, which you can download from

http://www.unc.edu/~adamsonj/files/jbackup-0.1.tar.gz

It's licensed under the GPL.

Keep in mind that experts (i.e. paranoids) recommend you having backups on multiple media, and in multiple locations, e.g. in case your house burns down or some kind of catastrophe destroys your whole system (including the external hard drive you are mirroring to).

Enjoy! Joel

Answer by ananth.p

ananth.p — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:11:53 -0400

Unison File Synchronizer works wonderful in this direction. http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/

Answer by jeremy

jeremy — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 02:16:12 -0400

rsnapshot will give you the benefits of daily snapshots without taking much more space than a single snapshot (at least for normal usage patterns. If you have a ton of data changing on a daily basis, you'll want to explore other options).

rnspashot - http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/articles/Jeremys_Magazine_Articles/Backups_with_rsnapshot

--jeremy

Answer by Ron

Ron — Fri, 28 May 2010 22:24:54 -0400

rsync is a good option, also I find simple-backup and also luckybackup to also be useful in their own ways. Obviously if you JUST want to backup folders and files, that is different than say backing up entire systems, which you would use a different toolset to do, like Clonezilla.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BackupYourSystem/SimpleBackupSuite

Answer by DBA

DBA — Fri, 28 May 2010 15:39:17 -0400

I've used two strategies depending upon my need. For both I have an online RAID6 array containing a directory for each machine I'm backing up. Currently I'm using a Thecus N5200 which has been reliable for a few years:

1) Rsync is FAST and will help your snapshot problem a bit. It overwrites files having the same name with the newer version. It does NOT delete files removed on the original machine which may be a plus or minus depending upon your need to archive vs. restore.

2) For snapshots using an efficient DIFF scheme to minimize duplication, I use rdiff-backup. It's much slower than Rsync but has allowed me to restore working machines when they've been totally clobbered. It also has a feature allowing you to delete old snapshots. Read all about it (after you install it from synaptic or Applications/Ubuntu Software Center) at:

man (1) rdiff-backup

Good Luck.