And another one gets put on my refuse to use list !!!

[AndyMH]

I would be interested in a comparison, how long to backup with macrium and resultant image file sizes compared to same with foxclone.

While I agree with Jeannie on finding linux equivalents to what you used to do in win, backup is so fundamentally important that it is essential that you use something you know and trust. I'd be delighted if you used foxclone, but equally happy if you continued with macrium.

Now have we talked about file level backup and your options in linux...?

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...I used to use Adobe. I stuck with Photoshop CS6, and Lightroom 3 for a long time after they went subscription based. Eventually I started playing around with Affinity Photo (also paid). When I made the decision to move to Linux, I started learning Gimp and Darktable...

I ditched Adobe a little before they went all subscription. I only used Adobe Acrobat Standard (I also used Elements briefly because it came with a scanner I bought but I didn't like it) so it was easy to find a cross platform replacement: Qoppa PDF Studio Pro. I had to pay for it but the license is lifetime (I would have to pay for upgrades if I wanted them but, so far, they haven't added any features I need or want). PDF Studio is much better than Acrobat Standard and it isn't buggy as a flop house bed, like Acrobat was.

...I'm of the opinion now, that if a company is mandating the use of high dollar software then the company should have to foot the bill.

I've had that opinion for just about everything for some time now. One of my pet peeves is companies requiring that I have a cell phone to be able to business with them. I have a dumb-as-rocks flip phone I got for emergency use; I don't even turn the darned thing on unless I actually need it (which is almost never) to avoid running up my monthly phone bill (I also never activated voice mail). I have a pay-as-you-go plan that I have to pay $5.45/month to keep it active and just loaded up a balance in it). When a company demands my cell phone number, if I can't get away with giving them a fake one, I ask them if they are going to buy me a phone, pay for the plan, buy me a home that can get cell phone reception, and take responsibility to any identity theft the phone causes. Usually, the response is a lone cricket chirping in the distance.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I would be interested in a comparison, how long to backup with macrium and resultant image file sizes compared to same with foxclone...

I'm thinking the size of an image file would be dependent on how much compression is used, which I believe can be changed in each program. I tend to use program defaults most of the time so I don't recall if compression amount can be changed in Reflect (Macrium is the name of the company and Reflect is the name of the program).

...backup is so fundamentally important that it is essential that you use something you know and trust...

I totally agree but it would be well worth MintMagoo's, and anyone else's, time to eventually adopt Linux programs, or equivalent workflows. You can put a Chevy engine in a Plymouth, etc. (done that, regretted it), but it's not always a good idea.

Comparing Reflect to Foxclone is like comparing apples to kumquats even though they get the same results. As I recall, Reflect gets installed on a Windows PC and is OS specific whereas Foxclone gets installed on and runs from a USB stick or other drive and is OS agnostic; that I feel is a good enough reason to prefer Foxclone over Reflect. In essence, Reflect combines some of the functions of Timeshift and Foxclone but doesn't do them quite as well (it's kinda sorta like the one-size-fits-all-myth).

Reflect can create images while the computer is still running. Foxclone cannot, which is an advantage since it won't die if the drive in the computer does.

...Now have we talked about file level backup and your options in linux...?

And that would be a topic, an extremely important one, for another thread.

[AndyMH]

I'm thinking the size of an image file would be dependent on how much compression is used, which I believe can be changed in each program.

In earlier versions of foxclone you could change the compression level. I removed it, beyond compression level = 1, it takes a lot longer for very little gain.

Reflect can create images while the computer is still running

You can do this with ntfs partitions, I don't understand how and given that none of the linux image backup utilities can do this with linux filesystems suggests it cannot be done. I have looked at this and not found any explanations - if there was, there would be a version of foxclone you could run from your normal system. There is one possible exception, veeam, but this is enterprise level and proprietary, so behind closed doors.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I'm thinking the size of an image file would be dependent on how much compression is used, which I believe can be changed in each program.

In earlier versions of foxclone you could change the compression level. I removed it, beyond compression level = 1, it takes a lot longer for very little gain...

I stand corrected (wait, I'm sitting ). Like I said, I normally use program defaults since I figure the developer knows far more than I do. I change defaults only if I'm forced to do so to get a program to do what I want or need (such as enabling file selection in Foxclone).

I'm thinking the size of an image file would be dependent on how much compression is used, which I believe can be changed in each program.

In earlier versions of foxclone you could change the compression level. I removed it, beyond compression level = 1, it takes a lot longer for very little gain.

Reflect can create images while the computer is still running

You can do this with ntfs partitions, I don't understand how and given that none of the linux image backup utilities can do this with linux filesystems suggests it cannot be done. I have looked at this and not found any explanations - if there was, there would be a version of foxclone you could run from your normal system. There is one possible exception, veeam, but this is enterprise level and proprietary, so behind closed doors.

It's probably safer to not to make images while a system is running. What would happen if you made a change on something, such as install a program or make a setting change while the image is being created?

I feel using Timeshift to make a snapshot while the computer is running and an imaging program, like Foxclone, Rescuezilla, etc., working offline, no matter the file system in use, to make an image is much safer.

[MintMagoo]

My recommendation now for putting it on a stick would be to use ventoy and I must update the guide to better reflect that. A "how to" on ventoy:
viewtopic.php?p=2389786&hilit=ventoy#p2389786

Are there instructions anywhere on how to build a bootable from the linux command line? With windows I used things like diskpart, bcd and dism instead of apps like rufus and win2go. I just found at that level it was better for me to learn the way to do it cli, while I still got lost, it ended up being easier to untangle and gave me more flexibility in the future then learning how to deal with an app and having the actual way to fix it hidden behind the gui.

[AndyMH]

Are there instructions anywhere on how to build a bootable from the linux command line?

Do you mean build your own linux iso, you need a lot of linux-fu and it is a very steep learning curve?

[MintMagoo]

Do you mean build your own linux iso, you need a lot of linux-fu and it is a very steep learning curve?

No, I meant a bootable USB for the backup instead of using ventoy.

[AndyMH]

You can make a bootable iso of your installed system, systemback is one utility, respin is another. I have never used either.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Do you mean build your own linux iso, you need a lot of linux-fu and it is a very steep learning curve?

No, I meant a bootable USB for the backup instead of using ventoy.

While Ventoy is preferred for creating a bootable USB stick since you can easily put multiple ISOs on it (and I still recommend it), a simpler way that puts only one ISO on it is USB Image Writer (it has worked fine for me in the past). It is probably already installed on your computer. Use it to run Foxclone to make and restore your images.

[MintMagoo]

While Ventoy is preferred for creating a bootable USB stick since you can easily put multiple ISOs on it

Multiple ISO's you say? One disappointing thing was I can no longer run multiple installs as well as reflect using a single USB drive anymore, maybe I spoke too soon.

[MintMagoo]

While Ventoy is preferred for creating a bootable USB stick since you can easily put multiple ISOs on it

Multiple ISO's you say? One disappointing thing was I can no longer run multiple installs as well as reflect using a single USB drive anymore, maybe I spoke too soon.

[Telyx]

Yes. There are Windows and Linux versions of the desktop program, so you install that, plug in a decent capacity blank USB stick, run the desktop program and have it install Ventoy to that stick. After it's done, that USB stick will appear as "Ventoy" to a computer. Just copy a bunch of ISOs to the stick and when you want to boot one, have your computer boot to that USB stick. You'll get a boot menu showing all of the ISOs; select the one you want and it will boot.
I have Puppy, Bodhi, a few Mint MATE versions, and Foxclone ISOs on my Ventoy stick.
Keep in mind the ISOs don't save changes between reboots (i.e. they don't run with persistence) by default, though the Ventoy desktop program has the option to add a persistence file.

[BG405]

It's probably safer to not to make images while a system is running. What would happen if you made a change on something, such as install a program or make a setting change while the image is being created?

I agree 100% with this. In fact even in Windows I was getting partition clone failures using Easeus Partition Master (I think that's what it was called). I think the other one I tried was Acronis True Image, which refused to perform a clone operation on the partition on the running machine,

Found that out when I tried to restore a partition. .. the tablet in question has been gathering dust ever since. I'd tried removing the "Recovery" partition to claw some space back on its 32G eMMC POS. I did get Mint to boot on the thing with some cludgery using Rufus. 32-bit UEFI. Took about 15 mins to get to the desktop with the USB stick .. I still intend to get some flavour of Linux on it at some point.

[MintMagoo]

I tried Ventoy, FoxClone and Rescuezilla.

Ventoy is a nice tool. There is an option to reserve space for an additional partition. Which after testing I now use on a 1 TB external NVMe drive. When I tried to format the reserved space using DISKS, Disks created free space, padding each side of the partition. I didn't try GParted, maybe that would format the reserved space correctly. Since Macrium Rescue was one of the ISO's I put on Ventoy I just booted into that and formatted the reserved space using DiskPart, I was using NTFS format anyways. Really nice tool, tested Windows to see if autounattend.xml would work, and it does.

My first trys of FoxClone failed, system would just hang when booting up. Both Bionic and Focus versions. Then tried Rescuezilla, it booted up and into the app without a hitch. Tested out Rescuezilla.

After I wondered if the issue with FoxClone was that I had the GPU set to dynamic. It was, I was able to use FoxClone in integrated and discreet mode, dynamic mode was the only issue.

Tested FoxClone against Macrium Rescue:

Drive and data being backed up:

1: 17 MB
2: 23.2 GB
3: 1 GB
4: 10 GB (swap)
D: 23.5 GB
E: 494.1 GB

Backed up to Seagate 4 TB HDD Drive

FoxClone:
Backup Time: 51:06
Backup Size: 281.5 GB

Macrium Rescue:
Backup Time: 41:11
Backup Size: 306.3 GB

Backed up to Samsung 980 external drive (Drive with Ventoy installed, FoxCone copied to and running from, with the reserved partition I created):

FoxClone:
Backup Time:41:13
Backup Size: 281.7 GB

Macrium Rescue:
Backup Time: 27:06
Backup Size: 305.6 GB

On those drives Rescue was faster, but FoxClone created smaller backup files. Setting Rescue to maximum compression in another test just took longer and FoxClone still created smaller backup files.

I have a different Seagate 2 TB backup drive. There can be issues with a lot of external drives that I am aware of (and confused about) that linux handles different than Windows. When using it with windows sometimes it is fine, others it is slow. It is not the drive itself, but something with the controller for SATA on USB and S.M.A.R.T. (I think).

Tried several times with Rescue, it was obviously running way too slow, I wasn't going to wait and I aborted each try.

Then tried it with FoxClone:

Backup Time:51.10
Backup Size: 281.5 GB

After testing Ventoy, Rescue and FoxClone, I wanted to test Windows from Ventoy using autounattend.

After trashing my machine testing Windows install I used the FoxClone backup created on the 2 TB Seagate external drive for a full install of all partitions.

Restore Time: 54:46

Everything seems fine, I have a lot of VM's and figure as I use each one that will provide a good test.

[AndyMH]

Interesting, thanks for that. A trade-off time and size between foxclone and macrium reflect. Use the one you are most comfortable with. I'm guessing that the issue with foxclone and not with rescuezilla might be that rescuezilla has a later kernel.

[MintMagoo]

I would still choose FoxClone over Rescuezilla. Between FoxClone and Rescue it is a hard choice. Is there a way/tool to open the images up and look at/extract individual files created by FoxClone?

[MintMagoo]

I would still choose FoxClone over Rescuezilla. Between FoxClone and Rescue it is a hard choice. Is there a way/tool to open the images up and look at/extract individual files created by FoxClone?

[AndyMH]

Yes, but...

The image files are compressed, you can un-compress them with a utility such as pigz (what foxclone uses to compress in the first place), then you can mount the image and look at the contents.

Using my latest foxclone backup, the image file for my home partition is 240GB. Uncompressed that would need 370GB of space. That's before you consider how long it would take.

Same is true of rescuezilla.

[MintMagoo]

That is one advantage of Rescue.