Timeshift Saving and Location of SOLVED

[frostymusic]

I am going to make more use of Time-shift. Now my Time-shift files are saved directly to my 1 and only SSD. Could they be saved to another location (external device) or even on a thumb-drive??

[MAlfare]

I am going to make more use of Time-shift. Now my Time-shift files are saved directly to my 1 and only SSD. Could they be saved to another location (external device) or even on a thumb-drive??

They can, and they should.
Destination can only be a ext4-partiton, on an thumb-drive for example.

[AZgl1800]

yes,
definitely do NOT use a save location on the same SSD/HDD as the OS is installed on.

that will lead eventually to disaster.

I divide my SSD into two partitions, and set Timeshift to use the 2nd partiation which I have named Backup

[frostymusic]

Thank you all for your thoughts, I am going to change my method of backing-up.

[frostymusic]

I checked my Timeshift/Snapshot folder....I have 483GB of timeshift files, I think I need to reduce the number of times it creates files.

[frostymusic]

...And do I store them on separate internal device or on an external device??

[MAlfare]

...And do I store them on separate internal device or on an external device??

That is definitely your decision.
If you have both available, take one or the other.

[frostymusic]

Ya..but....on an internal device, connected to the motherboard, Linux will see the device as SATA?? An external device will depend on having a working USB port and cable.....internals are cheaper.....

[AZgl1800]

I checked my Timeshift/Snapshot folder....I have 483GB of timeshift files, I think I need to reduce the number of times it creates files.

I have been down that road, and after a lot of experience with Timeshift, I have settled down to only 5 Daily backups, and 1 Weekly backup.

If something in particular needs to be saved Semi-Permanently, I just name the appropriate backup which makes it stay in the backup list until you manually delete that one.


Set the backups you want:

name the ones you need to save Semi-Permanently:

[Aztaroth]

I am going to make more use of Time-shift. Now my Time-shift files are saved directly to my 1 and only SSD. Could they be saved to another location (external device) or even on a thumb-drive??

A good start could also be Timeshift's homepage :
https://teejeetech.com/timeshift/
It's just one page and you'd learn how TS works and how to get the better of it by its developer.

[frostymusic]

Yes, I now have an external 2TB disk to use to store Timeshift. I am also trying Pika Backup for saving Home directory??

[Larry78723]

You could use BackInTime for /home backup. It's in the Software Manager.

[mikeflan]

I have 483GB of timeshift files

This is unlikely, but not impossible. To see the true size of the Timeshift snapshots excluding extra hard links do this:

Code: Select all

sudo du -sh /timeshift/snapshots > ~/Desktop/timeshift_size

It will take a while to run. Then open timeshift_size on the desktop.

Nemo reports the wrong size of the folder due to hardlinks.

[frostymusic]

Tried running sudo du -sh /timeshift/snapshots > ~/Desktop/timeshift_size
No results as now I am not saving the snapshots internally but on an external device.
Doing a snapshot to the external device gave me 168gb snapshot, that was one initial snapshot and not having Timeshift set up to do more daily,weekly or monthly
snapshots.

So I will play with this a bit more.

My thanks to all who helped out!

[AndyMH]

Doing a snapshot to the external device gave me 168gb snapshot, that was one initial snapshot

168GB!!!! You must have enabled 'include all files in home'. Do not do that. Install another application to take care of your data. You have choices, I use backintime, another would be luckybackup. backintime can be installed from software manager. It works just like timeshift, but the default is to only backup files in home. So complementary to timeshift (if you use the defaults in timeshift not to save anything in home). That way, screw up your system, timeshift gets you back leaving your data alone, lose data and backintime gets it back leaving the system alone. I save my timeshift and backintime snapshots to the same ext4 partition on another drive, because the drive is internal/removable I have them running automatically, daily.

[Petermint]

Timeshift, Backintime, and the others use a feature of Ext4 to save space. The first snapshot is a complete copy, about 20 GB for Timeshift. The rest of the snapshots have only changed files and are smaller, perhaps 1 GB. Unchanged files are just tiny links to the original. You need the special command, mentioned in other posts, to see the real disk usage.

I use a spare 60 GB SSD for Timeshift in my desktop and run it only manually after a kernel or similar major update, about once per fortnight. You can use a good brand of USB stick. That first big 12 ~ 20 GB snapshot can break cheap USB sticks. The other snapshots are tiny. Just remember to sync or eject after writes to USB storage.

[frostymusic]

Timeshift Type.png (8.36 KiB) Viewed 4014 times

IncludeExclude.png (7.1 KiB) Viewed 4014 times

That is how it is set for a daily setting.

[AndyMH]

This is how you should have it set up:

then use a different utility such as backintime to take care of home.

[frostymusic]

Okie Dokie...

Were still on backing up system, so I am looking at BackinTime 1.3.1 from website

[AndyMH]

Were still on backing up system, so I am looking at BackinTime 1.3.1 from website

You can install it from software manager. Version in software manager is 1.2.1, doesn't matter, it works.