I don't HDD backup; backing up files is easier
...and quicker.
About Backup Solutions:
Full HDD/SSD/partition backups I did under Windows. There is software for that like
gparted-live, or clonezilla, but
dd does it also, if you just want to backup/restore full drives, and not align/resize partitions.
Pro: From a pure technical point of view they are trivial to set up, easily done, and simply safe everything.
Cons: They safe
everything. Since drives are never full with full drive BUs you'd also backup empty sectors, which does not make much sense. Full drive BUs often take (way) more time as it was practical for regular daily safes, so they cannot be done frequently enough to be really useful for normal production usage, but as part of larger system modifications, only. If used as only BUs there is the trap your last BU made is very old, and with a restoration you enter the "way back time machine." Months of lost work could be the result.
And that's what needed to be backed up: Your work. All your time you spent.
The system itself is "throw away", 'cause it's easy to reinstall, even quickly done, when your backup-plan covers your system config. Also the hardware is quickly replaceable. But no manufacturer's guarantee covers your paper you're working on for months, that has its deadline tomorrow.
Under a real OS (
) in almost all cases it's to backup the files, and filesystems, maybe the partition tables.
That was the easy part.
Now it will not become really complicated, but it needs a bit effort to answer questions for to analyze the own situation, and develop an own backup plan:
- what (system(?), config files(!), /etc, /home, /data, repos,... /ex-partner-pix, /saved-games,... more important, less important, unimportant, life depends on it...)
- amount (some kB...several TB)
- how often (monthly, weekly, daily,...every second?[zfs snapshots]) (which data changes how often?)
- what's reasonable?
- what needs to be safe from what (own idiocy [#1 reason to restore from backups!], hardware failure [can happen anytime, even on brand new hardware], burning house, nature catastrophy, burglary, malware,...)
- how long need the backups endure (again: frequency of change)
- where to (additional drive, NAS, cloudserver, tape, CD/DVD/BD,...) what's available? what's affordable? what suffices?
- available storage capacity
- available bandwidth (1 kb/s...10 GB/s...?)
- How (cp, rsync, dump,... tar, compress, encryption,... incremental, non-incremental, self written shell scripts, backula,...verification)
- redundancy (1x, 2x, 3x...)
It's pretty obvious: There cannot be given a general answer but "Do backups!" - "do it! do it! do it!" NOW!
Everybody has to develop her own suiting strategy based on the analysis of the very own situation.
Setting up a backup plan is not only part of setting up a system like think of which window manager to use, or install packages, but the most important part.
Check, adjust and improve your backup plan is part of system's maintenence, like updates, and upgrades (maybe less often needed, but even more important.)
Anyway, I want to give a general tip, that seems "duh! obvious!" but may be underestimated when desaster striked:
Test the restoration! Really, actually do it!
All backup software, and backup strategies are worthless if you don't know how to get your data back. If the real event occurs you will be anything but cool. So it's better you are at least cool and confident in handling your restoration, not to mess things up even more.
