Backups

[siamect]

I have previously written about how and why I try to avoid partition backups, They are time consuming unless the partitions are very small. You need to unmount the partition you want to backup which means you are shutting down the computer if the partition you want to backup is the system partition.

Restores are also time consuming... It does not make sense to restore an image if all you lost is a file or two. It only makes sense if you have crashed the disk. And the result is a system that date back to when you last made the backup.

So basically, partition backup is not the way to go if your aim is to secure your data. It is much more efficient to backup your data on a "per project" basis, using a distributed version control system like Git. Data that from practical reasons are not supposed to be under version control, (like DVD images of films etc) should be checksummed, compressed and stored in a few locations.

But if you really want to do a partition backup, I just found a free program that may be useful. I don't have any experience with it, I only tried to use it for two ext4 partitions and it worked fine both backup and restore. Having said that, I still do not claim that this software is bug free enough for you to use. So it is up to you to test. Read the forums, bug tracker etc. Make some backups and restore them again and test the result.

http://partclone.org/

It is released under GPL license.

If you want to follow the development sources, they are here:

git clone git://partclone.nchc.org.tw/partclone.git

This software is also included in the Clonezilla CD.

Examples 1:

clone /dev/hda1 to hda1.img and display debug information.

$ partclone.extfs -c -d -s /dev/hda1 -o hda1.img

Examples 2:

restore /dev/hda1 from hda1.img and display debug information.

$ partclone.extfs -r -d -s hda1.img -o /dev/hda1

Examples 3:

clone /dev/hda1 to /dev/hdb1 directly and display debug information.

$ partclone.extfs -b -d -s /dev/hda1 -o /dev/hdb1

You should also be aware that restoring a system partition also means that the boot loader may not like the result and therefore the boot loader should be reinstalled.

Ubuntu has a description how to reinstall grub2.

https://help.ubuntu....community/Grub2

(if anyone clone to another disk you need to match /etc/fstab with your swap partition)

[sulasno]

I am using one of Paragon's free cloning applications and it takes an hour to clone the 40GB partition on my old notebook I suppose the old Ghost is much better

[siamect]

I am using one of Paragon's free cloning applications and it takes an hour to clone the 40GB partition on my old notebook I suppose the old Ghost is much better

To me, the format for storage is of great importance. I never use any backup system that uses proprietary formats. You should be able to recover your backup even if the software you created it with is no longer available. Ghost and Paragon is not filling that criteria.

Partclone had a transfer speed of about 3GB/min between two sata disks. But that depends on the spec of the computer and the disks...

Martin