Linux Backup Software

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alisam

878 posts

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#319188 31-Mar-2025 19:04

I haven't seen any comments on Linux Backup Software for a long time.

If you are a home user, what are you using (free or paid)? Would you recommend your software?

(I am using Ubuntu 24.04 and would primarily backup to an external USB Drive)

PC: Dell Inspiron 16 5640 (Windows 11 Home), Dell Inspiron 7591 2n1 (Windows 11 Pro), HP ProBook 470G1 (Windows 10 Pro), Intel NUC7I5BNH (Zorin)
Net: Grandstream 1 x GWN7062 Router, 1 x GWN7665 Access Point
Storage: Synology DS216play NAS, 2 x 6TB
Media: 3 x Amazon FireTV. Echo, Dot, Spot
TV: 2 x Samsung H6400 55" LED TV, Panasonic TH-P50G10Z 50" Plasma TV
Mobile: Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
Wearable: Gear S3 Frontier

marpada

487 posts

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#3359213 31-Mar-2025 19:19

I used Kopia (with KopiaUI) for my home folder as it is multi-platform and allows backing up to Cloud providers like AWS S3 and Backblaze B2, and of course local devices. Probably not the most user-friendly option though.

d3Xt3r

697 posts

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#3359242 31-Mar-2025 20:23

For local backups, I use Vorta, which is a GUI frontend for Borg.

The advantage it has over traditional *nix tools like rsync is that Borg has built-in de-duplication (in addition to compression and encryption), so backups often occupy a lot less space compared to a regular backup. And it supports incremental snapshots where only the altered bits are stored, so you could set a daily backup schedule and not worry about running out of space.

Another option is Timeshift, but I believe this is mainly for system files. Personally, I just use btrfs snapshots (with Snapper) for system backups, but this requires that you use btrfs as your filesystem, and that you've created subvolumes as per Snapper's recommended layout.

timmmay

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#3359248 31-Mar-2025 20:46

I've used Restic for years, it's my only backup tool for Windows and Linux. It's block based, does de-duplication, compression, it's incremental, and supports many back ends such as sftp, S3, disks, etc. I moved to it from Borg maybe a decade ago. Works great. It's a CLI tool, but people have built GUIs.

SumnerBoy

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#3359362 1-Apr-2025 08:18

Another +1 for Restic. Very good backup tool, well supported and actively being improved all the time. I recently came across a web based UI for it - https://github.com/garethgeorge/backrest - which I am using as a read-only view on my repos but I believe you can use it to orchestrate everything if you wish.

Otherwise I have it running on cron jobs on my various servers via the CLI. There are plenty of wrappers for Restic, I am using;

https://hub.docker.com/r/cupcakearmy/autorestic - for backing up my NAS
https://github.com/djmaze/resticker - for backing up the file system on my Docker Swarm

Highly recommend.

timmmay

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#3359363 1-Apr-2025 08:22

I also use the Resticker / Restic docker container to back up my Linux servers. It works well.