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 -
- Is one or more flash drives good for such kind of backup? Or would it get corrupt within few years?
- 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?
- If I do use Borg, should using one repository per folder be the way to go about it? Or is there a better way?
- 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?
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.
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?
The configuration is whatever borg saved in ~/.config.
A script would have commands to
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.