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With Windows 7 I can easily set up a scheduled backup, which will incrementally backup directories I have selected, as well as create a disk image, all whilst I am still using my PC.

Is there anything even approaching the level of seamless convenience and quality of the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) for Ubuntu?

belacqua
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Dave
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1 Answers1

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Yes, far surpassing it in fact ;-)

There is Déjà Dupinstall.

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DéjàDup allows you to easily back up anything to a local drive, a network drive (e.g. a NAS), Amazon S3 and elsewhere. It's set up in seconds and extremely reliable. You can install it by just clicking the link above.

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Backup intervals can be set, and the system will automatically delete old files, if you want it to, after a given amount of time.

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Select any storage target for your back up, even my university's web-server (shhh!) :P
All very easy. :-)

You can read all about it at gnome live.

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You can restore specific versions of a file as well, the number of versions kept depends on storage and how long you set déjàdup to keep backups. In my example, there's about a version a day for three month for the file.

Zanna
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Stefano Palazzo
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  • Thanks for the suggestion. I had come across this, but it's surprising how little info there is available about this program. Does Deja Dup perform incremental backups, so that I can restore a file to the most recent version, or the second most recent, etc? Does it do it's thing in the background, so that I can continue working whilst it runs? Does it create a system image, so if something catastrophic occurs I can restore my entire Ubuntu drive? – Dave Dec 17 '10 at 06:34
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    It backs up files, not entire drives. You could of course have it back up everything (you'd prefer to just use your whole home directory instead of everything though), but it won't be a single image. Yes it does do incremental backups, of course. I've added another screen shot that should answer your question about restoring specific versions. DéjàDup is keeping itself invisible, and only occasionally shows up as an Indicator when backups are processed, you never need to worry about it. You won't notice it's running. – Stefano Palazzo Dec 17 '10 at 06:49
  • Keep in mind also that changes in files are backed up incrementally. Changing a large file will result in no more than a the number of changed bytes of extra space needed for you to be able to restore an older version at any time. – Stefano Palazzo Dec 17 '10 at 06:55
  • Whoops- Stefano beat me to it :^) According to this LiveGnome page it is rsync-based and does incremental backups. It doesn't explicitly state that it works in the background, but I'm sure it's so. – koanhead Dec 17 '10 at 07:01
  • What is the opposite of it working in the background? I don't understand, are you talking about it bringing up a massive window to let you know that it's working really hard? As koanhead says, it doesn't do that. ;-) – Stefano Palazzo Dec 17 '10 at 07:03
  • Very nice answer Stefano! ;P And FTW rsync! :D – danizmax Dec 17 '10 at 10:43
  • Thanks for expanding your initial answer. It does indeed seem like a good solution. By "working in the background" I mean can you continue using your PC as normal without interruption whilst it backs up (though of course the PC will run a bit slower)? Other than that, the only thing missing is a drive image. If the worst happened and my Ubuntu drive failed, could I restore my entire Ubuntu drive, including all programs (though perhaps after reinstalling Ubuntu first to set up the boot/swap partitions etc)? – Dave Dec 18 '10 at 03:01
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    It won't be any slower, rsync is very frugal about system resources. And nice process scheduling ensures that you won't notice a thing. – Stefano Palazzo Dec 18 '10 at 16:29