I have added one previous response to this subject below that from Stack.
The multiple back-up, remote site, and redundant fail-over described
below is of course very desirable and totally infeasible for the
end-user situation. As for backing up to the cloud, the user has a USA
DSL connection to the web, with an internal (inside the house) an IEEE
802.11 network for which the combination DSL access "router" is under
the configuration control of the ISP (in this region for DSL over a USA
voice telephone provider copper twisted pair connection for the "last
mile" from Frontier Communications as the provider -- for those outside
the USA, the communications networks are, as with the USA for-profit
health care system, both much more expensive and much less capable than
what many of those on this list are familiar. Thus, remote backup is
not a viable alternative (particularly given Internet service
interruptions and degradations from the provider, allowed by the USA
for-profit "regulations", even when the lower layer DSL is "active").
The end user in question uses "cook book" vocational training IT type
books to use the office suite applications she wants (e.g., MS Office XP
now being forced to upgrade to MS Office 2007, currently running under
CrossOver -- commercially supported Wine), does not want to learn
LibreOffice and until LibreOffice is fully compatible with all MS Office
formats, cannot use these for her professional applications (for which
MS Office formats are the "standard" along with PDF -- LaTeX is not
used). If I am to "support" her needs, I insist that her machines are
"unix" -- today, Linux.
She wants an incremental backup system that uses a removable external
drive, and that she can initiate (not time interval daemon driven), and
that allows her to "find" a deleted file that she needs -- but for which
she looks both by the file name, but also by scanning content when
necessary (including viewing an image file such as JPEG or a video file
such as MP4).
As for "attitude changes", I expect none. In large measure this is
because "computer 'education'" typically is vocational "secretarial"
studies to use a few end user IT applications, and with no explanation
or understanding of how a modern classical computer "works" (classical,
not quantum, neurosynaptic, etc.). In the USA, a major issue is the
lack of education in mathematics -- USA "high school algebra" already is
being phased out for a general 4 year university degree at many USA
accredited "colleges and universities". Without mathematics, very
little understanding of computers is possible (both for the software and
the hardware).
Déjà Dup may be a viable solution -- I will look at that.
On 8/9/21 7:17 AM, ~Stack~ wrote:
On 8/9/21 1:47 AM, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
"rsnapshot". Old, stable, and extremely effective at configuring backs
of both system files and user data.
I second rsnapshot. Been using it for years and it is easy to set up
Yearly/Monthly/Daily/Hourly backups and how many of each you want to
keep. Since it uses symlinks, only the data changed takes up space.
Since I'm backing up a LOT of systems, I've got a dedicated server. But
I've used it before on just a single laptop with an external drive.
The two cautions I'll give are:
* Have an off-site backup too. I have two external drives that I rotate
weekly to a secure location (it can be your house) that just has the
most current backup. The way I do it, if I lose /everything/ else then
worst case scenario I still have my data as of two weeks ago. I have
lived through a catastrophic failure and I did so with very little data
loss.
* Backups can be very challenging. The more options you want and the
more devices and the more OS's and the more things you want to tweak
just make backup that much more complex. Pretty soon you find the only
thing that matches your requirements are enterprise solutions like
Bacula. Rsnapshot is simple and has several things you can tweak, but
don't expect a lot of bells and whistles other then the basics. I've
found that's true of most of the simple backup interfaces.
Good luck!
~Stack~
Benson Muite <[email protected]> wrote:
Déjà Dup is a good choice for that. However, attitude changes may
also be required. Assuming that some of the information is confidential
time investment on the part of the user in understanding and being able
to configure the system may be useful in the long run. If you manage to
create an attitude change, please let us know how so we can replicate
the process:)
