Does anyone have any recommendations for good backup software? My use case is pretty simple. I have an external usb drive I want to backup to every so often. Both the source and backup drives are 8TB capacity (I’m not even close to using the full capacity yet)

Normally the backup drive is left unplugged but I want to be able to plug it in run the backup software to copy across anything new then unplug it again for storage.

Simple file backup (not looking to do a full bootable OS drive backup or anything)

Thank you

  • Onihikage@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    FreeFileSync is FOSS and works pretty well for me. It can be set up for automated sync on a schedule or you can just manually sync files between two destinations. I haven’t really tinkered with the automated stuff but if what you want is to open up a program and hit a button to sync, it can definitely do that.

  • Haatveit@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Bvckup (not a typo)

    Made by a little Swiss company, extremely light but very competent. Stays completely out of your way unless it absolutely must get your attention (which is usually never).

    I think it’s paid only but it’s very reasonable. Works great in intermittent situations, I. E. It won’t blow up if it tries to run a scheduled backup and the source or target is disconnected etc… Works very well for me for a decade.

  • vinotempo@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Hey, I’d recommend taking a look at Syncthing. It’s software that runs locally, and you can configure the synchronisation to occur in a unidirectional flow instead of bidirectional. I.e. configure it to only synchronise data from the source drive to the backup drive.

    Hope this helps and all the best!

    EDIT: As pointed out, Syncthing is more suited to syncing data between two or more devices so may not be the right solution for OPs use case.

  • Satan@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Am I the only one out here using Clonezilla? Am I that out of touch?

    No it’s the children who are wrong.

  • Schedar@beehaw.orgOP
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    1 year ago

    Lot’s of recommendations here thank you everyone. Will take me a little bit of time to read through all the options here but there looks to be same great solutions.

    Thank you very much.