Back In Time

[bilyo]

I tried using Clonezilla some time ago, but abandoned it in favor of Mondo for some reason I can't remember.  I'll look into it again.
Thanks

[John Bee]

I'll look into it again.
Thanks

Clonezilla is, for me, easier to use thru the GPartEd bootable disk. You can use scripts to automate the whole thing.

I can post my script for backing up PCLos if you wish.

[bilyo]

John Bee,
I'll give that a try.  Do you get it from sourceforge.net?

[John Bee]

John Bee,
I'll give that a try.  Do you get it from sourceforge.net?

Sorry, got my names mixed up. It is PartedMagic that I use.

No one should be without this in their arsenal of repair and recovery.

http://partedmagic.com/doku.php

The Parted Magic OS employs core programs of GParted and Parted to handle partitioning tasks with ease, while featuring other useful software (e.g. Partimage, TestDisk, Truecrypt, Clonezilla, G4L, SuperGrubDisk, ddrescue, etc…) and an excellent set of info to benefit the user. An extensive collection of file system tools are also included, as Parted Magic supports the following: btrfs, ext2, ext3, ext4, fat16, fat32, hfs, hfs+, jfs, linux-swap, ntfs, reiserfs, reiser4, and xfs.

Parted Magic requires at least a i586 processor and 312MB of RAM to operate or 175MB in “Live” mode.

[pags]

Ertain,
Yes. I've read the info about the hard links, but I don't fully understand what that means except that only files that have changed are actually backed up.  In general, for backup software that works this way, my big question is how does a restore work in the event of a hard disc crash.  It appears that the unchanged files don't get backed up. So, are they lost?
Thanks

If you are using the "incremental" type backups, a complete restore (back to the point of the last "incremental", would require you to first, restore the "full" backup and then restore each and every "incremental" in reverse order since the "full".

Restore in this order,

most current -----------"full"
oldest -------------------"Incremental"
next to the oldest -----"Incremental"
etc..etc
current ------------------"Incremental"


Hope that sheds some more light.

Backup software that uses hardlinks (like Back In Time) has the benefits of incremental backups (i.e., only backing up data which has changed), but because the hardlinks are connected to the original, actual data, each backup is, in effect, a full backup.  In order to restore the the last state, just copy everything form that backup. The data will come "forward" properly.  The fact that the changed files are also stored in the older backups allows you go "back in time", and pull out a file as it was in the past ("oops, I wish I hadn't over-written that manuscript with that list of dirty jokes, and then backed up my system....ohh!, there it is from last Tuesday!").

As far as the size discrepancy, does it use compression?  Were there files in tmp that account for the difference?  Do you have soft-links in your home, and one tools is de-referencing them while the other isn't?
Don't know the answers to those questions, yet.