Linux

48008 readers

931 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
No misinformation
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

185

How do you all go about backing up your data, on Linux? (self.linux)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Kalcifer to c/[email protected]

105 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] akash_rawal 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use rsync+btrfs snapshot solution.

Use rsync to incrementally collect all data into a btrfs subvolume
Deduplicate using duperemove
Create a read-only snapshot of the subvolume

I don't have a backup server, just an external drive that I only connect during backup.

Deduplication is mediocre, I am still looking for snapshot aware duperemove replacement.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm not trying to start a flame war, but I'm genuinely curious. Why do people like btrfs over zfs? Btrfs seems very much so "not ready for prime time".

[–] akash_rawal 5 points 1 year ago

Features necessary for most btrfs use cases are all stable, plus btrfs is readily available in Linux kernel whereas for zfs you need additional kernel module. The availability advantage of btrfs is a big plus in case of a disaster. i.e. no additional work is required to recover your files.

(All the above only applies if your primary OS is Linux, if you use Solaris then zfs might be better.)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

btrfs is included in the linux kernel, zfs is not on most distros
the tiny chance that an externel kernel module borking with a kernel upgrade happens sometimes and is probably scary enough for a lot of people

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Fair enough

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I've only ever run ZFS on a proxmox/server system but doesn't it have a not insignificant amount of resources required to run it? BTRFS is not flawless, but it does have a pretty good feature set.