That is really cool! I'll have to try something like that. I'm thinking a good strategy is to have two drives, both with all the same stuff on them, and I'll use them both to backup all my Linux boxes (home, office, laptops). I'll just switch between home and office every week or so. That way if my house burns down or my office is burglarized, I still have a copy of everything from last week at the other location. Does that seem reasonable? The thing I'm not sure of is how that strategy would work with the "time machine" concept -- I'd be using two drives and swapping them weekly. Mike On Fri, 4 Sep 2015, Jeff Chapin wrote: > Looking at the rsync command you gave, it looks correct -- but rsync can do > so much more when backing up! > > Using the magic of rsync, and the magic of hardlinks, you can make a full > backup, in incremental time and space. Rsync has, built into it, the > ability to compare your most recent backup files with existing backup > files, and if they are they same, use a hard link, and copy them over if > they differ. This allows you to store just the files that change -- but it > looks like a full backup every time it runs. This way, you can keep, say, > hourly backups for the last week -- and recover an accidentally deleted or > altered file, even after the latest backup has run. > > For more details: > https://blog.interlinked.org/tutorials/rsync_time_machine.html > > > > On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 8:21 AM, T L <tlunde at gmail.com> wrote: > >> Assuming that you have NOTHING on the drive that you care about, I would >> remove the factory partitioning and create a new GPT table with parted. >> >> Then, format that as ext4. >> On Sep 3, 2015 3:17 PM, "Mike Miller" <mbmiller+l at gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> How to format? >>> >>> I have a couple of Linux boxes that I would like to regularly backup to a >>> 5 TB external drive. It seems like it would be a good idea to format that >>> drive with ext4. Can I just do that with gparted? The drive comes with >>> NTFS format. Are there any issues I should know about? >>> >>> >>> Which directories to back up? >>> >>> What really needs to be backed up? I guess if the system totally failed >>> I'd install Linux (Ubuntu) again. Of course /home is needed, but >>> /usr/local and /opt often have programs I've installed and /etc will have a >>> bunch of settings. I guess /var can have some important stuff. Are >>> crontabs stored in /var? >>> >>> >>> Which software to use for backup? >>> >>> I guess I want only to have in backup what is on the originating drive. >>> So if I have deleted a file, I want it to be deleted on the backup drive, >>> too. I assume rsync can do this. Would this be correct?: >>> >>> rsync -av --update --delete /home /usr/local /etc /var /opt /media/me/back >>> >>> >>> TIA! >>> >>> Mike >>> _______________________________________________ >>> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >> >> > > > -- > Jeff Chapin > President, CedarLug, retired > President, UNIPC, "I'll get around to it" > President, UNI Scuba Club > Senator, NISG, retired >