best way to do a backup of a notebook - with or without laplink /usb /ethernet

English Install/Boot/Login
1

hello dear community,

how to make a copy on DVD - i need to save all the data.

background: my notebook stops every day. i guess that it is likely to quit the job very soon.

what do i need to do to do a full copy

can i do this

a. on comand line with the dd command `? using dvd; note i would take several dvds since there are many GIGABytes to save.
b. can i use a second notebook and connect both with a ethernet & laplink-cable
am i able to do such a backup - from one machine to another? is this a good idea?

c. what do you suggest - which way is the best to do a backup
d. How to do a backup of all the bookmarks and data that are stored in the browser? Can this be saved too?

2

Home is the important thing second would be /etc all else can be reinstalled. I would not burn system files it is a waste of DVD space since you can reinstall anytime

All sort of backup software available. I’d recommend dargui but it seem to be no longer is available that I can find. there is a gdar package

https://software.opensuse.org/package/gdar

and of course dar itself but it is command line.

I don’t know of any Linux programs that backup direct to DVD. But dar lets you define compressed slices/chunks the size of a DVD or CD or what ever. Then you burn the slice files to DVD. Personally I use memory sticks and luckybackup because they are more reliable and faster then DVD also available in larger chunk sizes. And you can copy direct to them.

3

On 2015-07-05 01:26, dilbertone wrote:
>
> hello dear community,
>
>
> how to make a copy on DVD - i need to save all the data.
>
> background: my notebook stops every day. i guess that it is likely to
> quit the job very soon.

Maybe, maybe not. but a backup is always a good idea.

> what do i need to do to do a full copy
>
> can i do this
>
> a. on comand line with the dd command `? using dvd; note i would take
> several dvds since there are many GIGABytes to save.

No.

To write to a DVD you need special software that writes to a DVD, like
k3b or brasero.

> b. can i use a second notebook and connect both with a ethernet &
> laplink-cable
> am i able to do such a backup - from one machine to another? is this a
> good idea?

Yes, you can do that.

> c. what do you suggest - which way is the best to do a backup

It depends on what hardware you have available.

For instance, do you have an external hard disk, big enough?

> d. How to do a backup of all the bookmarks and data that are stored in
> the browser? Can this be saved too?

Of course it can. Just store your entire home.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))

4

On 2015-07-05 01:46, gogalthorp wrote:

> I don’t know of any Linux programs that backup direct to DVD.

Clonezilla, but a single one, I believe. And it is not a /backup/ per
se, but an image.

Years ago I used a nice script, that created cpio archives broken on DVD
sizes. But it was up to one to burn the things separately.

> But dar
> lets you define compressed slices/chunks the size of a DVD or CD or what
> ever. Then you burn the slice files to DVD. Personally I use memory
> sticks and luckybackup because they are more reliable and faster then
> DVD also available in larger chunk sizes. And you can copy direct to
> them.

Yes, nowdays I would do that. Or external hard disks, cheaper per
gigabyte and much larger.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))

5

hello dear Robin hello dear All,

many many thanks for the replies.

welll - if i take the external-drive and do a copy with command line then i can use the dd-command

do you think so? regarding the dd-command

The powerful dd command is quiet very very simple - at least to my opinion and i would say it is a pretty efficient command.

i guess that we can say that this command works as following :


    dd if=[input location] of=[output location] conv=sync,noerror

note;

conv=sync,noerror

will prevent problems from read errors.

we don’t need it, but it sucks to see our backup halt 12 hours in because of a small error on your disk.

that said; The input and output locations can be files, folders, partitions, media, anything.
In our case we can, for example, make an ISO image of a CD by setting the input as /dev/cdrom and the output as cdcopy.iso.

But wait; we do not want to create a iso. We want to do a backup!

In our case, we will set the input to the drive to backup and the output to our external drive.
Therefore we have to open a terminal and type our command using the locations from #5:


dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb conv=sync,noerror

(here we have to (!!!) make sure that we have the right locations!!!: note; we want to use a external-drive.

Conclusion: To restore our backup, we can use the dd-command - it is simple and powerful.

Any idea to add?

6

On 2015-07-05 19:36, dilbertone wrote:
>
> hello dear Robin hello dear All,
>
> many many thanks for the replies.
>
> welll - if i take the external-drive and do a copy with command line
> then i can use the dd-command
>
> do you think so? regarding the dd-command

NO.

dd can copy a partition or a disk, as block. It can not do a backup of
files, a copy of many files. You would need one dd command per each
file, meaning millions of commands issued.

If you want to image the entire disk o an entire partition, then yes.

Or you could instead just use “clonezilla”.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))

7

rsyc copies files or groups of files. Advantage is that after the first copy only changes are written to backup

Note if copying root file by file remember that some directories are virtual and must be left out of the backup notably /proc /sys /dev

8

Really, if you’re not familiar with the details of partition/whole disk copy I’d advise against it.

Just backing up your /home folder and a few /etc files like fstab and exports - or the whole /etc folder if you will - should be enough. It will be much faster an more efficient than dd-ing or cloning the whole disk/partition/whatever.

Also note that if your laptop dies or you reinstall on another HDD/SDD the system won’t work without some manual fixing, as the hardware probably will be different (specially if it’s another brand of processor and/or video and network) and the fstab entries, usually linked to partition UUIDs will be wrong.

9

First,
Don’t use a laplink cable. That’s a special “cross over” type cable that enables direct PC to PC connection without an intermediate hub or switch when you need two way communications. That’s totally inapproriate connecting a PC to “dumb” storage, ie direct storage like USB, eSATA, firewire and more. A laplink cable is used for migrating a system from one machine to another when both machines are theoretically actively running at the same time.

As those before me have alluded, “dd” simply copies disk blocks from source to target and little if anything more.
Modern backup apps may backup by file or by creating a disk image but the result is usually located in a single file. This means additional features are possible like compression, file level integrity checks and verification. You might also be able to narrowly specify a file tree for backup rather than a whole partition or disk, so your backups can be smaller and faster. The idea is that once you have a backup of what doesn’t change, do you need to keep backing that up or instead only backup the changes? Keep in mind though that the more complex what you backup, the more complex recovery will also be… So, for many Home Users, saving disk space isn’t workwhile, just make enormous backups that are typically “one click” recovery.

Backup apps also typically can apply various “plans” based on your own needs which can include simplicity/complexity, more/less disk space, recovery characteristics.

Basic types of backups include
Full (entire system)
Differential (one root backup plus any number of succeeding backups which contain only the changes compared to the root backup)
Incremental (one root backup plus a series of small backups of changes, every one requiring all that came before it)

You may also want some flexibility on the location of your backups. Direct storage can be limited and has to be connected. You can also run a “Backup Server” on your network, in that case you will want a backup app supporting a network protocol.

Various backup apps can be found in the openSUSE repos, and others on the Internet will generally work fine, too.

HTH,
TSU

10

Hi not sure how far you’ve got with this yet, but my advice would be (especially if you have a lot of files) an external hard drive. These can now be bought really quite cheap and are really a life send if you otherwise would have lost those all important documents or photos. You could either use it via usb (usb3 would be faster) or maybe, as mentioned, set up a network backup for all your devices. You could use an old pc or even the low cost RaspberryPI. If it were me and I suspected a dodgy hdd, I’d do the external drive back up urgently first before setting up anything else and sooner rather than later :slight_smile:

As for software I really like luckybackup which is in the repositories. It’s really straightforward to setup and you can do incremental backups once you’re all sorted in the future.

Good luck.