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Backup Solutions for Linux

While there are many options(cp, tar, simplelinuxbackup, fwbackups, rsync, unison, bacula, keep, karchive ... etc) for backing up Linux systems, there does not seem to be a consensus number one option. So, I went through the frustrating process of trying out a lot of options and found my number one. While the particular needs and intentions of specific systems ultimately determines the best backup tool, I went for the simplest solution for my simple problem.

  • First, I don't need data compression since I have plenty of space on my HD. Plus, date compression consumes a lot of CPU which becomes a huge hustle when I am trying to do real work while performing my backups.
  • Second, automatic/periodic/scheduled backups are not needed in my case because I will invoke the backup process whenever I plug in my external HD and am in the mood to perform backups.
  • Third, I don't feel the need for file encryption.
  • Fourth, I don't need incremental backups -- I simply want the latest copy backed up and don't want to worry about earlier versions.

On the basis of what I need (or don't need), I concluded that rdiff-backup was the simplest and best tool for my backups. It is quick, does no compression or encryption by default and works very reliably. Plus, it does not require me to do any conflict resolution (unlike unison) and it builds the latest backup using previous backups and the newest source very efficiently (unlike rsync).

Addendum 06/30/08::
rdiff-backup & keep were all good until I started switching distros like my freaking socks. So, I am adding another requirement to my simple backup tool - portablity and platform-independence. I need something that should work with any distro without my intervention. That final requirement has led me to switch to rsync.

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BT08 said…
KDE has built a program called keep which basically provides a GUI for doing backups using rdiff-backup. The set up is very simple, and backups could be automated or performed manually. So, it's the solution I have upgraded to.
February 6, 2008 at 4:36 PM
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