Hi,
I currently use a program called copywhiz on windows that backs up any files or directories created after a certain date to a usb hard drive and runs once a day.
I want to transition fully to Linux. Is there any easy to use software that works on Linux that can do this?
P.S. I have tried creating a bash script to do this but for some reason it has trouble with the date part. So a software solution would be prefered.
I’m pretty sure there are lots of options that work great. I personally just use rsync-but I know the command line is scary for a lot of people making the transition. There are lots of options like timeshift that basically put a gui wrapper around rsync. I’ve seen a lot of love for borg as well - maybe try one of those two.
I feel backups are personal and it’s hard to get a “just do this instruction”. You’ll probably have to pick a product, and then do some homework to see if it can do what you want. This is further complicated by the distro you use - or more specifically if your distro uses btrfs. Some people use a backup as a sort of snapshot, and btrfs is more full featured than ext in that regard.
Good luck!
If the aim is simply to mirror an existing directory, including mirroring suppression/deletions/new files/edits, and only copying what has changed (which is what I suspect you were trying to emulate with the "created after a certain date" thing), just do:
rsync -avh -P /path/to/source/ /path/to/destinationIf the aim is to copy all files created since, say, three days ago, but not to update existing files or to remove files that have been removed from your source (which is what you described):
rsync -avh -P --ignore-existing --files-from=<(find -L /path/to/source -ctime -3 -exec basename {} \;) /path/to/source/ /path/to/destinationEdit: lemmy is html encoding my "lesser than" symbol in the second command above; replace accordingly
I use Linux Mint and love the automatic backup tool that's built in: timeshift
Timeshift is for a system backup, in case your system broke for whatever reason you could get back quickly to your work without rebuilding and reconfiguring it. It's not ment for backing up user files.
It's built on top of rsync, you can easily configure it to make a backup of any arbitrary set of files
You can use it like that, but it's not a primary focus I think.
That's true, sure. I still find it a convenient tool, so I thought OP might find it convenient for this use-case even if that's not the primary purpose
I think that for your use case (backing up to an external USB drive) great option would be something based on Borg.
Vorta and Pika Backup are great graphical tools for Borg program, with the first being more advanced while the latter being simplier.
UPDATE: The specific date thing is because every 6 months i backup my nas to LTO tape so this backup is anything that isn't currently on tape just in case the NAS dies between backups.
I use a service called iCloud which has both cloud storage and local backup support built into it. Not free or open source but no cloud platform fully is. It's also really cheap for students.
I use Borg to my nas, then rclone that to rsync.net. With Borg if you need the remote copy, you can interact with it directly.
You can, of course, Borg directly to rsync.net. You can also use rsync instead and let their ZFS snapshots do retention for you.
Use timeshift, install it, just chose where you want the backups to be installed, preferably a second HD or SD Flash. Chose when like once a day, week at start up for instance and forget it. Then if you screw up your Linux, just start in console mode, timeshift --restore and five mins later your up and running.
If you want just your data to be copied, then Cron
Both are standard Linux programs, often already installed depending on what Linux you have
