Baqpaq Data Backup - by Tony George (TeeJee)

[fstjohn]

I've just paid Tony for BaqPaq ($19), which is a data backup program (GUI and Command Line) using the BorgBackup encrypting, de-duplicating, compressing back end, Rsync and Rclone. I'm just now putting it through its paces, backing up a couple of internal 1TB HD's to an external 3TB. The initial backup, understandably, takes a long time. Remains to be seen how long the updates will take. You can schedule backups with CRON in the program's GUI with complete flexibility. Create different profiles for different files, separately scheduled.

Looks like a worthy replacement for Back In Time which I've been using up until now. Anybody else using this program, what's your experience?

https://teejeetech.com/product/baqpaq/

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I never heard of it so I checked it out on the linked website and wasn't all that impressed since it uses snapshots which seems inefficient to me.

I use the free version of a GUI driven folder/file syncing program called FreeFileSync (FFS) (https://freefilesync.org/) It's essentially a sophisticated copy program. The program can be installed from the software manager; the website also has an online manual and users' forum.

FFS, when set to Mirror mode (not the same as RAID 0!), works by comparing a source driver or folder to a destination drive or folder. It will then copy any new or changed files on the source drive or folder to the destination drive or folder and delete any files on the destination drive or folder that aren't on the source drive. The result is essentially a clone of the source drive or folder on the destination drive or folder. The destination drive can be used as is. You can also do two way and customized syncing.

Since only new, changed, or deleted files are involved, updates to the backup can be very fast, depending on the amount of data involved. Unless I've added, changed or deleted a lot of data during the day, it usually takes me only a minute or two to update my backup drives at the end of the day.

FFS can also be used to restore data from a backup drive back to the source.

Since files can be lost due to accidental deletion or file corruption on a source drive, FFS has a feature called Versioning that will send files deleted by FFS to a user designated Versioning folder. Another feature, unauthorized but very effective (you have make a simple, minor change to its globalsettings.xml file), sets FFS to verify all file copies have not been corrupted. Any files that do not successfully copy over are listed in a report when the operation is completed (I can't remember the last time that happened, though).

You can preset FFS configurations so you don't have to set it up every time you use it. Just click on the configuration you need, then click on compare to make sure everything will go the way you want, then click on synchronize. You can queue up multiple configurations to run one after the other (handy for me when I'm updating backups for multiple drives).

Did I mention that it is free?

[fstjohn]

I use the free version of a GUI driven folder/file syncing program called FreeFileSync (FFS) (https://freefilesync.org/) It's essentially a sophisticated copy program. The program can be installed from the software manager; the website also has an online manual and users' forum.

I've used FFS for a long time, I even own the "contribution" version. The advantage of Baqpaq is the compression and de-duping (plus the encryption if you need it), provided the majority of your files are candidates for compression, i.e. not pdf, mp3, mp4, mkv etc. then you get a very significant space reduction. The scheduling feature is important for me; "set it and forget it".

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...The scheduling feature is important for me; "set it and forget it".

You can schedule backups if FreeFileSync. I don't recommend it, though, since it requires your computer to be on and the backup drive to always be connected, the latter not being a good idea.

[fstjohn]

I have a 1TB external drive that's always connected, and my desktop is always running. I schedule Timeshift and previously Back in Time (but now Baqpaq) to run daily in the wee hours to backup my system and important data files to the external 1TB. I also have an external 3TB which is normally disconnected but which I connect on a more-or-less weekly basis and back up everything; system and all data. This is done manually and the drive is physically disconnected and powered down when finished. Important data is also dynamically backed up to the Megasync cloud service; end-to-end encrypted.

[fstjohn]

I've been using Baqpaq for a month now. I couldn't be more pleased. It uses Borg backup as a back-end which is extremely efficient as to compression. My daily backup is around 34GB and I keep 6 days worth. The total Borg filesize for the 6 backups combined is around 22GB. The daily backup is scheduled and takes less than a minute. I also run a daily scheduled "Prune" job which deletes the oldest backup, keeping the total to 6.

I also do a weekly (more or less) manual backup using Baqpaq. My Home directory, two internal 1TB disks and one external 1TB get backed up to my normally disconnected 3TB external disk. I keep two weekly backups. Total unpacked filesize for the two backups is 3.5TB. The Baqpaq directory size including the two is 1.7TB. Initial backup took several hours, but subsequent backups take less than 10 minutes. First time I mounted the weekly backup took several minutes. Subsequently it takes only a few seconds. All 4 drives are then available read-only in a separate Nemo window.

Other capabilities which I haven't explored include automatic uploading to a cloud service and syncing to a remote server or another machine on your network. You can also compare the differences between two backups and validate a backup.

[michalq]

The Baqpaq (+Timeshift, of course) is clearly an amazing backup tool. Moreover, the Baqpaq is, at least from my point of view, the clear winner over all available backup tools. The 17 Eur is really very good price for this robust, effective, very flexible and simple to use backup tool.