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Re: Backups
Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2018 7:36 pm
by lilith
sysrqer wrote:lilith wrote:Luc wrote:Are you writing to an NTFS file system from Linux? Is that considered stable now? I really don't know. Sounds dangerous.
öhm.. yes. Was it considered to be unstable?
edit: Hmm.. might be a problem with the user rights when backuping /home
Writing to ntfs is not unstable but (I believe) you lose the permissions which could be an issue potentially. More of a concern is performance which you have noticed. I struggled with this for a long time and the only explanation I ever found was the fact that ntfs uses journaling and doesn't write in the same way as linux formats, even though linux formats do have journaling as well, I guess it's more aggressive than ntfs's implementation. I researched this a lot and tried many different attempts to fix it including mountpoint and copying options but never really found much to make a huge difference but I know that it can bring your system to a halt sometimes. I have come to the conclusion that it is just the way that linux deals with that filesystem rather than an inherent problem as windows doesn't have such a bad performance with it, predictably, although it can be problematic there too. There are a number of things you can try, depending on how deep you want to go, but unless you need to it is better just to backup to a similar or same filesystem you are using.
Great you experience the same
. I googled, but I also don't find any good forum posts, etc. about that issue. I will reformat the device and see if it helps. I was just puzzled, because my audio was dropping out, although it should be configured to have the highest priority possible.
Right, the permission can be a problem for files in /etc, etc.
Re: Backups
Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2018 2:37 pm
by merlyn
Luc wrote:merlyn wrote:You can't then use both drives in the same system, so you put the backup somewhere safe. Because it isn't powered up my thinking is it's extremely unlikely to fail.
I don't know how "unlikely" that is.
I have an IDE drive from around 2000 that is still good. It's sat in a box for the last ten years. If it had been powered up regularly in that time I'm fairly certain it wouldn't be working.
Re: Backups
Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2018 3:29 pm
by lilith
They should be powered at least once per year, because of the lubrication.
Re: Backups
Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 10:08 am
by khz
Re: Backups
Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 10:40 am
by lilith
I use grsync.
Re: Backups
Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 11:27 am
by Linuxmusician01
I use Unison to synch my laptop and desktop. That application overwrites newer files on one or the other machine. That is, I can work on a document on one computer and then its overwritten to the other.
Because I got used to using/configuring Unison I also use it to back up important directories to an external USB drive. I'd better use rsync for that though. I do not backup my complete hard drive because I don't have enough space on the external one. And I don't backup the many megabytes of internet browser cache etc.
I do not see a reason to backup applications because they don't work on a different/newer Linux distribution. Windows was great in that respect.
Re: Backups
Posted: Tue May 21, 2019 7:37 pm
by milo
I have been using rsnapshot (
https://rsnapshot.org/) for the last decade or so, and it works well. It is built on top of rsync, and is very configurable. I have it running on my NAS box, backing up to an external HDD. Unfortunately my studio computer in the basement gets poor wifi reception, so I use another external HDD and rsync to back up my project files after each recording session.
I have also used merlyn's dd method from time to time, like when upgrading hardware. This method works well, but is a bit too much hassle for routine backups.
Re: Backups
Posted: Tue May 21, 2019 7:51 pm
by Baggypants
I use duplicity. It can encrypt, do incremental backups and upload to all sorts of cloud servers. I use my own nextcloud.
Re: Backups
Posted: Tue May 28, 2019 12:30 pm
by Jamesf
I have a FreeNAS system for local backups, plus SpiderOak for encrypted offsite backups.
I learned the hard way (lost 2 years' worth of photos to a brainfart) that if you only have one backup, you don't have a backup.