Best practices for backup

[seisman]

For macOS

• disk format: APFS (recommend)
• Time Machine: the best backup tool in macOS (recommend)
• rsync

For Linux, there are more options:

• disk format
  • ext4 (recommend)
    • mkfs.ext4: https://blog.csdn.net/x13163303344/article/details/72846087
    • mkfs: https://man.linuxde.net/mkfs
• rsync
  • We may need incremental backups. See Best practices for backup: rsync #146 (comment).
  • https://www.ruanyifeng.com/blog/2020/08/rsync.html
  • https://rsync.samba.org/
• DejaDup
  • https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/DejaDup
  • https://www.howtoing.com/ubuntu-backup-deja-dup
  • https://pkgs.org/search/?q=deja-dup
• [ ] Fedora btrfs: https://linux.cn/article-12653-1.html
• more tools: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BackupYourSystem

For Windows:

• disk format: NTFS (recommend) | exFAT
• robocopy: https://core-man.github.io/blog/post/backup/#windows
• Windows 10 Backup
  • https://www.portableone.com/Tech-News/Microsoft-Windows-10-PCs-have-their-own-Apple-Time-Machine-feature
  • https://support.microsoft.com/zh-cn/windows/windows-10-%E4%B8%AD%E7%9A%84-%E5%A4%87%E4%BB%BD%E5%92%8C%E8%BF%98%E5%8E%9F-352091d2-bb9d-3ea3-ed18-52ef2b88cbef

Related to those posts:

• https://blog.seisman.info/file-organization/
• https://core-man.github.io/blog/post/backup/
• https://missing-semester-cn.github.io/2020/potpourri/#%E5%A4%87%E4%BB%BD

[core-man]

If we have a portable driver, we can use APFS for macOS and NTFS for Windows.

But what's the best filesystem for Linux? Fedora 33 now uses brtfs, CentOS 7/8 uses xfs, Ubuntu uses ext4 or zfs.
Which one shall we use? Or we may choose different formats for different Linux distributions?
It seems that we can use ext4 in CentOS 7/8 (xfs) and Ubuntu (ext4). How about Fedora 33 (brtfs) and Ubuntu (zfs)?

[seisman]

Maybe ext4 is the most commonly supported format.

[core-man]

Maybe ext4 is the most commonly supported format.

I don't know if Fedora 33 (brtfs) and Ubuntu (zfs) support it without any configuration, just like CentOS 7/8 (xfs).
We don't have Fedora 33 now and we usually choose ext4 for our Ubuntu.

So now I have not explicitly indicated file format for backup portable disk.

[seisman]

For Fedora, we can choose ext4 as the partition format during installation. I believe it means Fedora has native support for ext4, and it should be automatically mounted when an ext4-format drive is plugged in.

[core-man]

For Fedora, we can choose ext4 as the partition format during installation. I believe it means Fedora has native support for ext4, and it should be automatically mounted when an ext4-format drive is plugged in.

So we can now recommend ext4 as the format for Linux, while the user can choose other ones, e.g., zfs, xfs, or brtfs if they are willing to try?

[seisman]

Yes to me.

[core-man]

I think we won't be able to finish DejaDup, brtfs and Backup recently. Shall we add notes and reference link for each tool on the website instead of leaving it empty?

• DejaDup: https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/DejaDup
• Fedora btrfs: https://linux.cn/article-12653-1.html
• Windows 10 Backup: https://www.portableone.com/Tech-News/Microsoft-Windows-10-PCs-have-their-own-Apple-Time-Machine-feature

[seisman]

I'm OK with DejaDup and Windows 10 Backup, but btrfs seems very complicated. I think we can remove it.

[core-man]

I'm OK with DejaDup and Windows 10 Backup, but btrfs seems very complicated. I think we can remove it.

Great. Actually, I think rsync is enough, but I am okay to recommend the GUI tools, DehaDup and Windows 10 Backup.

[seisman]

TODO list:

• Shorten the index page https://seismo-learn.org/seismology101/best-practices/backup
• Linux
  • How to create an ext4 format hard drive
  • Improve the rsync instructions to make it work for both Linux and macOS
  • Make sure that the backup.sh script works for both Linux and macOS
  • Finish the DejaDup subsection
  • A short comparison between rsync and DejaDup
• macOS
  • How to create an APFS format hard drive
  • Add rsync instructions
• Windows
  • Recommend NTFS
  • Finish the "Backup" subsection

[seisman]

Related resource:

1. https://linuxtoy.org/archives/duplicacy_cli_3.0.1.html
2. https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy