Backing up system (Solved with Timeshift)

[FUBAR]

I have been reading about Timeshift and how to use it. I see there is a utility in Mint called Backup Tool. This tool will keep a record of the files that are in the directory that include photos,pictures, downloads etc??

[AZgl1800]

• Backup Tool ( included by Default IIRC )
  BackInTime ( I don't like this one )
  LuckyBackup ( in the Software Manager )

Timeshift is included by Default, and it will behoove you to make Triple Darn Sure, it is installed correctly.

e.g.; that means to select a Storage Location that is NOT in the Same Partition as your OS
and do NOT use it to backup /home

in my case, I created a special Partition just for Timeshift ( 60 GB is plenty )

[Cosmo.]

Timeshift and Backup Tool are quite different things.

Timeshift has the purpose to save the current state of your system and only the system, not your data. Timeshift is the security belt, which Mint provides. It is strongly suggested to activate it. The storage place should be in the ideal case a separate partition.

Backup Tool has the main purpose to backup your user data. But it is mainly a workaround, if there is no other backup software at hand. You cannot configure it, you cannot automatize it, you cannot exclude things, which you do not want to backup.

That's why you should use a different backup solution. Since nearly 10 years I use BackInTime, which has all the feature, which are missing in the default Backup Tool.

Reading the title of the thread I would say, Timeshift is what you are looking for ("Backing up System"), if I read your text I merely think, that you want to backup your user data. Please clarify this, possibly change the title of the thread.

Last word: Backing up both is important, if you want to avoid misfortune.

[antikythera]

AndyMH will probably shoot me for saying this but I use his foxclone program to backup my linux systems once a month.

foxclone.com is the homepage. However, if you have problems downloading the ISO use foxclone.org instead which is the archive site.

[AndyMH]

Plaudits are welcome, but I'm going to go off on a slightly different tack. Although I developed it, I only use foxclone infrequently. Why? It means I have to boot to a separate system (for most people a usb stick) and I have approaching 300GB of used space on my system drive - it takes some time to back this up. So...

I use timeshift to look after the system and backintime* (install from software manager) to look after my data. These work at the file level - the advantage is you can run them from your normal system (and do other stuff at the same time). Both use the terminal utility rsync to do the heavy lifting. Both of them take snapshots and each snapshot is a complete copy of either your system or your data. First time you run them, they copy everything = slow, subsequent snapshots they only copy what has changed = quick. With timeshift/backintime you can restore individual files/folders. foxclone knows nothing about files, it works at the block level, you have to restore whole partitions.

How is each snapshot a complete copy? They use hard links to point at files that have not changed since the original backup = saves a lot of space. Win filesystems do not support hardlinks which is why your destination needs to be an ext4 partition.

Best I can say about the mint backup tool is that it is okay, it creates a compressed archive of your data. Next time you use it, same again, a complete copy of your data, so now you have two. It does not have the snapshot capability of timeshift or backintime, nor can you automate it.

My backup drive is an internal but removable 2TB HDD**, I have timeshift & backintime running daily automatically. Once every few months I'll take a foxclone image backup. If something goes belly up, e.g. screwed up the system or lost data, timeshift/backintime are my first port of call. If the system drive fails, then I'll clone a foxclone backup to a new drive. That will get me a working system current at the time of the backup. I'll then use timeshift/backintime to get back to yesterday.

You can argue whether what I have is a backup since the backup drive is in the PC. LadyF has strong views on this and will probably comment. I have 4 x laoptops and a desktop, all pretty much identical, plus a NAS where important stuff gets synced daily. A lot of redundancy, works for me.

I know AZgl1800 doesn't like backintime, as he indicated there are alternatives like luckybackup (and there are others).

If I have a message, use both file and image level backup, you can never have too many backups.

End of my backup 101



* timeshift default, backup up everything except home, backintime default only backup home, so complementary.

** sits in a caddy in the laptop where the DVD drive used to live

[Cosmo.]

To clarify: The default Backup Tool does indeed use a TAR archive for storing the files, but this does not compress the least. It's purpose is to allow to use a NTFS partition as storage place, because the Linux file attributes get preserved by the TAR archive. And this, the possibility to use a Windows drive for backing up, is the only advantage of it.

[AndyMH]

but this does not compress

My bad

[OunceofCommonSense]

I use Timeshift and have restored both system and home partitions with it. I have my data in a separate partition from home(including my Thunderbird profile and local directory) so I don't have a lot of files in home. I use symlinks to link Video,Music and Document folders in Home to my data partition. I prefer to restore both as home does have some configuration files, cache and other files that can be restored with Timeshift.
Just my 2 cents

[Cosmo.]

Hm, you do not use a Browser or a Mail-Client? By combining system and home in a Timeshift snapshot every time, you apply a snapshot, you will inevitably loose data (browser bookmarks and history and mails). Strongly not recommended.

[AZgl1800]

I know AZgl1800 doesn't like backintime, as he indicated there are alternatives like luckybackup (and there are others).

I quit using BackInTime when I discovered that it will NOT let you recover your data, when you change the OS.
I thought I was super smart, and used it to backup 19.3 /home

then I installed 20.3 and BackInTime refused to recover my files,
I had to use Foxclone to reimage the drive back to 19.3 and then copy /home with NEMO to my External drive.

then in 20.3 I used NEMO again, to recover my data files....

[OunceofCommonSense]

Hm, you do not use a Browser or a Mail-Client? By combining system and home in a Timeshift snapshot every time, you apply a snapshot, you will inevitably loose data (browser bookmarks and history and mails). Strongly not recommended.

Thunderbird profile and directories are on my storage discs not home. Same for Firefox. I have restored both home and / successfully with Timeshift.
I mean why do you think Timeshift gives the option to save the Home folder/partition?

[Cosmo.]

I quit using BackInTime when I discovered that it will NOT let you recover your data, when you change the OS.

Without any further information it is near to impossible to give a precise answer. But it seems so, that you did not change the name of the machine in the advanced settings after you changed the machine, so that the host-name did not match any more. From the documentation about the advanced settings:

The full snapshot path will be shown below. You can change them to match paths from other machines.

[Cosmo.]

I mean why do you think Timeshift gives the option to save the Home folder/partition?

For very special cases, where you switch between quite different distributions, where the settings in home do not work if they are taken from the previous system. In such a case there is the possibility, that you wouldn't be able to use the main account.
This is not the usual case. But the op asks - to my understanding - about the usual case.
Further more the usual case is, that user keep the profiles for browser and mail-client in their home. You are of course free to do it differently, but your unusual usage of TS is in any case as I already wrote not recommended (and btw in the first post you did not even say, that you have set those profile to another drive, so nobody can consider this).

[OunceofCommonSense]

For very special cases, where you switch between quite different distributions, where the settings in home do not work if they are taken from the (and btw in the first post you did not even say, that you have set those profile to another drive, so nobody can consider this).

I think if you reread my initial post I did say my Thunderbird profile and folders were in a separate partition from Home

[Cosmo.]

Agreed: I have read over it.

This doesn't change anything about the fact, that including home in a usual case is strongly dis-advised and you know now, why this option exists at all.

[AZgl1800]

I quit using BackInTime when I discovered that it will NOT let you recover your data, when you change the OS.

Without any further information it is near to impossible to give a precise answer. But it seems so, that you did not change the name of the machine in the advanced settings after you changed the machine, so that the host-name did not match any more. From the documentation about the advanced settings:

The full snapshot path will be shown below. You can change them to match paths from other machines.

had identical PC/user names in both OS versions

[Cosmo.]

had identical PC/user names in both OS versions

But near to sure not the machine's name. I pointed to this by underlining the respective part of the quote.
Also possible: A different number (which is part of the snapshot path) for the profile.