backup data and system. few questions

[amigo421]

hi

actually two questions are there,
1. about timeshift. you know , the configuring is quite simple. and my one is performing the backup daily to seconf HDD.
there were couple cases when I would like to restore this from the backup. the system and user files.
there was no issues with user files, it was just restored. but both cases with system, it was restored into non-bootable state.
from my point of view , seems timeshift is unreliable tool. so first quesiton is about better candidate for system restoring in case e.g. HDD is damaged?

2. additional backup user files to usb stick.
I've configured crontab to run rsync daily :
rsync -avu --inplace --delete -s /home/user/Documents /media/user/usb-drive
this configuration works fine, it does what I expect, except the performance.
if I add a couple text files and couple jpegs during the day I expect that night sync should take a couple seconds or less. however it takes ~30 minutes, rsync copies many not changed files instead of added and updated ones only .
is there more "smart" tools to sync a folder with usb flash?

thank you

[mikeflan]

there was no issues with user files, it was just restored. but both cases with system, it was restored into non-bootable state.

That is a bit surprising. Maybe when the snapshot was taken your computer was in a non-bootable state. I keep a couple of old snapshots all the time.

if I add a couple text files and couple jpegs during the day I expect that night sync should take a couple seconds or less. however it takes ~30 minutes

It wouldn't surprise me a whole lot if rsync copied unchanged files within the directories that changed. I wouldn't expect that, but it could be the case.

is there more "smart" tools to sync a folder with usb flash?

FreeFileSync is pretty good at that. Blazing fast.

[amigo421]

about first question - this case happens on my two independent PCs ... the same thing.
I'll investigate.

about second one- many thanks for the tip, I'll check this (about directories)

and maybe "better tool" won't be required ))

[Petermint]

Protection against a broken disk? A disk image, say Clonezilla, lets you instantly restore to any disk the same size or bigger. In fact the image can be copied to a spare disk you can just plug in. The alternative is to perform a clean install on the replacement disk.

Timeshift is a quick way to restore your system directory to the same state as the last snapshot. You can restore to the image you copied from your backup image or to a clean install. Timeshift works as root to copy system files. It does not help with the partition layout or boot config, which is restored from the disk image or created during the clean install.

Your home directory would be backed up with Backintime or equivalent.

A Timeshift snapshot can backup a system when it is an unusable state. I run Timeshift only as manual snapshots after a boot, before starting anything else, and only after a major update like a new kernel, which will suggest a reboot.

You can also create problems depending on how you restore. Did you restore on a booted system or from a live boot?

Rsync to a single disk can delete files from the backup that you accidentally deleted on your machine. There is no way to go back. If you tell rsync to not delete old files, you can end up with other errors after a restore. I prefer Backintime as it creates multiple snapshots the same as Timeshift but for your home directory. You can then restore the latest snapshot to get the latest files and you have the option to look in old snapshots for files you accidentally deleted.

Backintime lets you create multiple backup profiles for a variety of backups. On my desktop with multiple disks, I have automatic daily snapshots plus manual snapshot profiles for external backup disks. My notebook has only manual profiles as nothing is connected every day.