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Alternatives to Borg backup for incremental backup of personal data? (programming.dev)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/recommendations@lemmy.world
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Hello, I have a bunch of personal data - videos, pictures, documents, PDFs etc. that I want to backup.

I am wondering what is the best way to do this?

Requirements -

  • I want to backup multiple different folders from my Linux computer - it is not a full disk backup.
  • Encryption would be great to have.
  • This needs to be a long term backup - like few years or more.
  • Data - small videos, pictures, PDFs, text files, documents, etc. Total size - less than 50-60 GB (for now - but it can increase over time).
  • I want to be able to incrementally add more data to backup of respective folders (e.g. new photos, documents etc.), or even add new folders.
  • After backup, I want to be able to cleanup my hard disk, reinstall OS or restore data from backup onto a completely new system in a new directory.
  • I do not care about stuff like file metadata like owner user, permissions etc.

Questions -

  1. Is one or more flash drives good for such kind of backup? Or would it get corrupt within few years?
  2. I found Borg backup, but it suggests that backup should be restored on the same machine - which does not seem to fit my use case.
  • It also suggests to keep Borg config directory - which again conflicts with restoring or adding new items from a different system.
  • Not sure how well this would work if restoring on a new system?
  • Are there any better alternatives?
  1. If I do use Borg, should using one repository per folder be the way to go about it? Or is there a better way?
  2. In Borg itself, I am thinking of using the repokey method (key stored with the repository) - and store the passphrase in a KeePass database on a different flash drive. Any different suggestions?

Please feel free to suggest any alternatives or improvements to my plan?

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[–] 3 points 1 month ago (1 child)

Never had any problems accessing a Borg backup either from the device where it was created or the device where it was stored. I could easily add new folders to my backup script.

Mounting a backup is a user friendly way of restoring some or all files.

Borg is especially nice because it retains a history of file changes.

I always backup my configuration and backup script as well. Maybe backing those up as a separate clear text copy can help you with restoring later in case of catastrophic loss.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    What do you mean by configuration and backup script?

    Configuration as in dotfiles?

    What does a backup script look like? Like a list of borg commands - one for each directory + repo which you want to backup? Or something more?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    The configuration is whatever borg saved in ~/.config.

    A script would have commands to

    • perform the actual backups (you can put multiple directories to the same command)
    • check for errors
    • delete old archives according to some rules you have.

    I have my backups set up to retain a two year old archive, a one year old one, one for the last twelve months, last four weeks and last seven days.

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