[GTALUG] Portable Backup Drive Compatible with Linux (and Recommended Backup Software)

[Giles Orr]

> On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 11:37 AM, Brad Fonseca via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
> wrote:
>> I am in the market for a new portable hard drive in order back up my
>> files on my Linux system (running Mageia 5.1). My requirements are:
>>
>> - Reliable
>> - Portable
>> - Price Under $100
>> - at least 500 GB in size
>> - USB-powered (I don't want to have to deal with plugging it in)
>> - no additional software included (an empty file system without having
>> to immediately reformat the drive if possible)
>> - Fast file transfer and retrieval rates (SSD with USB 3.0?)
>>
>> In addition, I'd like some recommendations regarding good Linux-based
>> back-up software. I've looked at luckyBackup
>> (http://luckybackup.sourceforge.net/) based on some articles I've read
>> but I know this group probably has some well-tested applications they
>> prefer. Ideally, the application will have good documentation and/or an
>> easy-to-use interface.
>>
>> Thanks so much in advance!

On 1 February 2017 at 11:49, Jason Shaw via talk <talk at gtalug.org> wrote:
> Getting 500 GB SSD for <$100 is probably not going to happen.
>
> I personally like the form factor of Western Digital Passport drives as they
> are USB powered,  USB 3, and small form factor.  I get decent performance
> out of it, and so long as your backups are incremental, after the initial
> sync, the future changesets should be fairly small.

I'll second the vote for the Western Digital Passports.  They're
spinning disks, but your SSD >500G for <$100 ain't happening.  And
besides, it's a backup, not your operating system, so slow should be
okay.  I've been using multiples of this series for about four years
for backups with no problems, traded up from the 2TB to the 4TB about
a year ago.  You can sometimes find the 2TB for about $110.  If the
price-point is important, the 1TB is currently $100 at Newegg (
https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236786&cm_re=western_digital_portable_external_hd-_-22-236-786-_-Product
) - may be cheaper elsewhere, I haven't checked.  The price varies
frequently, check Amazon, Canada Computers, and Best Buy as well.

I use rsync - my backups to the Passport drives usually takes about 20
minutes.  Initial prep of a 250G partition will take an hour or two,
but the differential backup after that isn't too bad.  I recommend
having at least two of the drives - this means you can have rotating
backups and it also means that you can store one off-site.

Jason is recommending incremental backups, which would be better than
rsync.  I need to spend the time to figure out the differences between
rsnapshot and rdiff-backup, make the choice, and get myself set up.

-- 
Giles
http://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr at gmail.com