Scheduled, straight files backup to USB for offsite storage?

Support & Help Requests
1

I am still helping my friend with his small office and the great many document files that he has stored in a single partition in directories by client names.

During his time using that 'other' OS I had made this happen on a schedule using a simple tool that copied the entire file structure, ignoring existing files & adding new/changed files to a collection of numbered USB sticks, which got swapped out to store off premises in case there was some sort of disaster at his little home office.

Since he felt very well protected with this setup, I would like to make this happen again for him now that he is a Linux user.

Trouble is - searching for backup answers centering upon USB brings a bazillion vague & unrelated results.

No protection or compression is needed or desired - just straight up file copying with the user only needed to change the USB stick regularly.

So - for instance - can DĂ©jĂ  Dup do this with the stick getting changed with no other user actions needed - will it just find the changed stick on its own somehow, or ??

Sbackup is by now quite old & seems abandoned, so no luck there, I think.

The luckyBackup docs make no mention of this either.

With that 'other' OS all I had to do was make sure that the sticks always got the same drive letter & so I now wonder if I make them all have the same name (Sandisk or whatever) might that be enough to 'fool' a backup util to find & use all the different sticks ?? (They are each labeled outside with a number).

I hope someone here will point me in the right directions for this as I am quite used to Linux full system backups, but not file by file ones.

This query has also been posted at Ask Ubuntu some days ago, but has drawn very little attention & no answer(s) AS YET.

Thanks in advance for any help with this.

2

Maybe I don't understand your requirements, but I use Clonezilla for my backups. Also, for an alternative to Clonezilla, ReDo/ Rescuezilla is trying to make a come back, but they are not quite ready yet.

3

Thanks for replying Jaybo !!

That is absolutely not what I'm asking - full system backups are no problem to me whatsoever.

This is for what I tried to describe above which is for those document files ONLY - file-by-file, to different USB sticks, on a schedule.

4

Long, long ago, I would have used "rsync" for this task. I would set up a daily "cron" job to copy the necessary new files to the backup host and/or device. So long as you consistently label the thumbdrives filesystem it will always be automatically mounted as

/media/{your user}/{filesystem label}

Note that "rsync" and/or "rdist" can be used to update/mirror website data too.

There is probably a modern Linux tool out there, but "rsync" has been around 30+ years.

djb

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5

Thanks for your reply Dave_Barnes !!

So, unless I am way off, 'filesystem label' is as I was thinking - make all the sticks the same, as in 'sandisk' or whatever - is this right ??

If that is the case then I can also use Grsync, which will be quite simple.
(http://www.opbyte.it/grsync/)

6

That is right. Make all of the thumbdrives have the same filesystem label. Grsync should do what you want with the files. Good luck.

djb

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7

Thanks Again Dave_Barnes !!
It is unknown when I'll be making the trip there again, but as soon as that happens & I have some results I will post back here about it.
(I must wait for him to get back home from his own travels & then we'll make a plan.)

8

Personally I use FreeFileSync for about 5 years.

I can cite my answer from AskUbuntu:

I can recommend FreeFileSync. It works fast and great.

FreeFileSync on Ubuntu

I'm using it for synchronization between HDDs, USB-flashes, SSHFS, Samba share and/or local folder.

Also it has real-time sync mode (named as RealTimeSync).

You can install as described in this answer:

  • by outdated package from GetDeb.net repository;
  • by downloading archive from official site to your home folder and extracting it here.

It works great in conjunction with Meld (sudo apt-get install meld).
You need to open FreeFileSync options (Tools→Options) and then add the following to the first line:

 |        Description       |             Command line            |
 |  Compare files in Meld   |  meld "%item_path%" "%item_path2%"  |

as shown on screenshot:

FreeFileSync Tools→Options

I have set up several folder pairs and run it every time I'm inserting USB-flash or USB-HDD.
It shows backup progress in very user-friendly way. I like it more than Unison or Rsync.

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9

Enormous Thanks Norbert_X !!!
This seems like the perfect solution for this exact situation, especially after looking in its manual, here:


I think I ran across this app years ago, but sort of filed it away as being for windoze with no thought to have another look at it.
So now I'll give it a test or 3 to make sure it does exactly what is required !!
Thanks Again !!!

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