Backup Home

[borgward]

What are the steps to Backing up /home to external HDD? Linuxmint 20.3. I have brand new HDD in USB external enclosure. I need to format the drive to ext4, using gparted? or install Mint on that drive? Right now if I run Backup Tool I see Personal Data Backup Now - Backups. I do not see /dev/sdb. OK to format sdb from the Disks - Format Disks or better to from gparted? Did not see documentation on running Backup Tool.

[AndyMH]

I have brand new HDD in USB external enclosure.

If this is a bare drive you have put in the enclosure, you will need to put a partition table on it before you create any partitions. You haven't said what size? For drives over 2TB you must use a gpt partition table, less than 2TB you can use gpt or msdos. If in doubt use gpt.

Use gparted for this, device > create partition table. Also use gparted to create partitions. ext4 is best if you don't need to share with win. If you do need to share with win, then might be better with two partitions, one ntfs and one ext4. If using timeshift (which you should) then it must be ext4.

When you create partitions always add a label (when you create a new partition in gparted there is an entry for a label). With a label, when you plug the drive in mint will automount it at /media/you/mylabel. If you don't have a label it will use the UUID, e.g. /home/you/d29bacfb-3d33-48ea-b1d4-caa0906e9694, not user friendly.

When creating ext4 partitions with gparted they are owned by root, so read only to you. Easy to fix, with the drive plugged in and the partition mounted, in a terminal:

Code: Select all

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /media/you/mylabel

this will change ownership to you.

Backup of home, there are better alternatives to the mint backup tool which is pretty basic. I use backintime (there are alternatives, like luckybackup). Works just like timeshifit - creates snapshots. You can restore individual files/folders or all of home. Each snapshot is complete (it uses hard links for files that have not changed = no additional space used, where you save the snapshots must be ext4). Default for timeshift is save everything except home, default for backintime is only save home, so complementary.

[Flemur]

What are the steps to Backing up /home to external HDD?

Make a linux partition (e.g. ext4, NOT a windows format) on the external drive, then

Code: Select all

cp -ax /home/username /external/partition/.

It'll be saved in /external/partition/username.

[borgward]

I have brand new HDD in USB external enclosure.

When you create partitions always add a label (when you create a new partition in gparted there is an entry for a label). With a label, when you plug the drive in mint will automount it at /media/you/mylabel.

In gparted > Create A New Partition Partition Name and Label fields are empty. I usually get a drop down for those blanks. Am I supposed to create the label as /home?, home? /media/you/mylabel?

[AZgl1800]

I have brand new HDD in USB external enclosure.

When you create partitions always add a label (when you create a new partition in gparted there is an entry for a label). With a label, when you plug the drive in mint will automount it at /media/you/mylabel.

In gparted > Create A New Partition Partition Name and Label fields are empty. I usually get a drop down for those blanks. Am I supposed to create the label as /home?, home? /media/you/mylabel?

yes, and it is easier for later use, if you do NOT use the '/' character in front of the Label although as you will see, I did Because "home" is in a dedicated Partition, and I wanted to make that easy to see later after I forget what I did.

and just for clarification on my Image, the partition for "backup" is a dedicated Partition and I labeled it " /Backup " to emphasize that fact.

I used to use Home, but Linux wants lowercase, so I have changed habits to label = home

[AndyMH]

When you create a new partition in gparted:

On a drive with a gpt partition table you can also add a partition name but I have yet to find a use for the partition name.

Or if the partition already exists, in gparted, you can find 'label filesystem' on the right click menu when you right click on a partition.

Next time you boot you will find it in the devices pane in your file manager:

Click on it to mount. Note the mount point highlighted at the top /media/andy/mylabel.

[borgward]

About mounting, unmounting - I can mount, umount from terminal or by clicking in several different GUI's. I sometimes see Remove Safely or Eject in GuI's I am assuming they unmount the drive, and so does shutting down while the drive is still mounted.

[AZgl1800]

About mounting, unmounting - I can mount, umount from terminal or by clicking in several different GUI's. I sometimes see Remove Safely or Eject in GuI's I am assuming they unmount the drive, and so does shutting down while the drive is still mounted.

I much prefer the "Safely Remove Drive" method.
that flushes out all of the data to the Target drive/folder.

then it unmounts the drive, and then I hear pop sound indicating it is done, and the Icon for the drive goes away.

[borgward]

I am now running Backup Tool weekly. I am now thinking about monthly or semi annual backups. I have so far been running mint 10 years with no loss. I am also wondering if running backups puts more wear and tear on my HDD. That's 520+- GB in Home. If I loose a month of recent data I can probably replace a lot of it from where ever it came from. The oldest files would be very hard to replace and time consuming.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I am now running Backup Tool weekly. I am now thinking about monthly or semi annual backups. I have so far been running mint 10 years with no loss. I am also wondering if running backups puts more wear and tear on my HDD. That's 520+- GB in Home. If I loose a month of recent data I can probably replace a lot of it from where ever it came from. The oldest files would be very hard to replace and time consuming.

The amount of wear and tear on your HDD depends on which HDD and how you are making your backups. If you are referring to the HHD in your computer where your data is stashed, just reading the data doesn't put much additional wear and tear on it. If you are referring to the backup HDD, where the drive is located, the frequency you update the backup, and the type of backup comes into play.

If (note that I said if) your backup HDD is located inside the computer, it will run all the time the computer is on, even if you aren't writing to it (some HDDs will spin down when idle for a certain amount of time). If (again, not the if) the backup HDD is external but constantly connected to the computer, it will get the same amount of wear and tear. BTW, both are bad ideas since that leaves them vulnerable to many of the dangers your HDD can encounter that can cost you your data.

If your backup HDDs (plural since it's a good idea to have one onsite and another one offsite) are external and are powered up and connected to the computer only while updating the backup, the amount of wear and tear on it will depend on what kind of backups you are making. If you are cloning /home, then you are writing all the data on /home every time you update and that will put quite a bit of wear and tear on the HDD.

If you are imaging and make a new image every time you update, that will also put a lot of wear and tear on the HDD, just no as much as cloning since imaging programs usually compress the images. Some imaging programs have the option to make incremental images. These will reduce the amount of wear and tear on the HDD since only new, changed, and deleted data will be imaged in the update. You do have to keep the original image and all the subsequent incremental images on hand, though, since losing any one of the will cause to lose part or even all of your data. A downside of imaging is you can't just pull your data from the image; you have to use the imaging program to use the image to restore your data, much like a photo negative is used to make a print.

The method of backing up data (not system files) to an external HDD that causes the least wear and tear to the external HDD is called folder/file syncing. A folder/file syncing program will initially copy all your data (some will let you choose or exclude what is to be copied) to your backup HDD, essentially making a clone of your data. After that initial backup, updates will compare the data on your computer with the data on the backup HDD, the copy any new or changed data on the computer's HDD to the backup HDD and delete any data on the backup HDD that's not on the computer's HDD. This dramatically reduces wear and tear on the backup HDD since only new, changed, and deleted files are involved. It also dramatically reduces the amount of time it takes to update a backup.

The folder/file syncing program I use is FreeFileSync (aka FFS). It is GUI driven and has features other programs I looked at didn't. I used it back in the bad old days when I was using Win 7 (and, maybe, XP; I don't remember now) so it was a natural for me to use with Linux Mint (it has Windwoes, Apple, and Linux versions). There is a bit of a learning curve and it takes time to set up the profiles needs, but once all that is accomplished, it is stupidly easy to use.

One feature FFS has that I consider to be essential, and wasn't in other programs I had looked at, is called Versioning. When enabled (which I strongly recommend), Versioning will send any files deleted from the backup to a user designated folder (a fancy way of saying you can put the folder wherever you want can call it whatever you want). This protects you from losing files off your backup because you accidentally deleted it from your computer or the file somehow became corrupted.

Unless I have added, changed, and/or a huge amount of data since the previous update, updates take only a handful of minutes or less from the time I first dig out my backup drives (I have four since I essentially have four data drives), connect them to the computer, run FFS, the safely shut down the computer, the disconnect and put away the drives (I use only SSDS so it would take you longer but not all that much). It takes me so little time to update my data backups, I do it daily at the end of the day, occasionally even more often (your frequency may differ).

[AZgl1800]

Jeannie, are you using the flatpak version from the repository of FreeFileSync?

and, can NEMO browse thru the backups? that is critical for me.

[AZgl1800]

I just installed FFS,
set up one folder, my Desktop and it worked okay.

Added "Documents folder" and it froze up solid, not even SUO would respond, I had to use BIOS to regain the laptop.

Mouse locked up, keyboard locked up.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Jeannie, are you using the flatpak version from the repository of FreeFileSync?...

It's been so long since I installed it on this laptop (and my notebook before it), I don't remember. Sorry. I'm not running a portable version, if that helps.

...can NEMO browse thru the backups? that is critical for me.

Yup. FFS copies files from from the source folder (same as Linux, FFS treats drives the same as folders) to the destination folder to essentially create a clone of the original folder (or drive) on the destination folder (or drive). Even the file tree remains the same. I say "essentially" since, if going from a drive to another drive, the destination drive will have its own UUID, different from the UUID of the source drive (with a true clone, the destination drive will be "prexactly" identical to the source, including the UUID). You could even swap out the destination drive with the source drive and it will appear to be identical to the original drive (of course, you would have to replace the source drives UUID in fstab with the destination drive's UUID to get it to mount automagically; otherwise, you could mount it using Disks).

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I just installed FFS,
set up one folder, my Desktop and it worked okay.

Added "Documents folder" and it froze up solid, not even SUO would respond, I had to use BIOS to regain the laptop.

Mouse locked up, keyboard locked up.


FFS Locked Up.jpg

Don't know what to tell you. There are some files and folders you need to exclude in the configuration, such the Timeshift folder (file permission issue that prevents copying). Others include the trash folder, lost-found file, the versioning folder, if you had set one up, etc. These could cause an endless loop if not excluded but, usually, FFS will throw up a warning if problematic files have not been excluded in the configuration.

FFS has a website with a manual, tutorials, and a user forum. You might want to check there. https://freefilesync.org/

[borgward]

I now have Backup Tool Setup. Ran it today manually, excluding nothing. Home on my laptop is 328GB. The tar file on the backup external drive is about 162GB.

If the laptops HDD goes down and is not repairable (it's 10 years old) how do I install the backup on a new HDD w/separate home partition?