Linux Backup Software

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alisam

829 posts

Ultimate Geek

#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: HP ProBook 470G1 (Windows 10 Pro), Intel NUC7I5BNH (Windows 10 Pro), Dell Inspiron 7591 2n1 (Windows 11 Pro)
Net: Grandstream 1 x GWN7062, 1 x GWN7610, 1 x GWN7665
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

475 posts

Ultimate Geek

#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

687 posts

Ultimate Geek

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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

20574 posts

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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

2074 posts

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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.