Looking for a lightweight backup tool for Linux

Question

I'm running Arch Linux and looking for a simple, lightweight backup tool so I don't have to worry about losing my critical data.

Answer 1

rsync, or unison

Answer 2

rsnapshot is based on rsync, and seems to work quite well.

Answer 3

dirvish is great. There's a decent tutorialhere.

Answer 4

According to jwz, it's rsync.

Answer 5

I use BackupPC. It's fairly good, although it really shines when backing up more than one computer, due to it sharing equal files to save space.

Answer 6

I like rdiff-backup for backing my desktop up to my server. rdiff-backup keeps an up-to-date copy in the filesystem you back up to, so it is easy to copy back the file you just deleted by accident, and the backups are done incrementally, so you only need to transfer the changes.

I run it from a @reboot job in my personal crontab, where I also delete any backups older than three months, so it is all done automatically when I turn on my computer in the morning.

The only caveat is that the version of rdiff-backup more or less has to match on the machine you back up and the machine you back up to (which takes a little work sometimes, when your desktop runs Debian unstable and your server stable, but the hassle is not that big.)

Answer 7

+1 for dirvish : ideal if you want to keep snapshots of several servers in disk. uses rsync under the hood.

Answer 8

I use a cronjob that takes my filesystem and puts it into a .tar.gz, and copies it to my external hard drive. This is good if your space is limited. My filesystem has about 30-40gb of files, and it compresses down to 8gb. You can also use an "exclude" file to list files or directories to not back up. Rsync can also do excludes.

If your CPU is fast enough, it's fairly fast. I can do mine in about 30-45 minutes with an Athlon II X4.

However, I'm thinking about switching to an rsync cronjob so I'm not continuously tarring the same files every week. My external drive is 1.5tb, so I have plenty of space for uncompressed files. And it should be faster to only copy what has changed.

If you're going to upload your backups to the internet, compressing your files would be much better. Less time to upload and using less of your precious space.

Answer 9

I'm using Cedar Backup to do full and incremental backups to DVD. It works for small amounts of data, when it all fits on a single DVD.

I'm currently looking for a better solution.

Answer 10

luckyBackup

An easy-to-use GUI to rsync.

Answer 11

I found Simple Backup easy to use and lightweight.