What is good software for incremental backup and good partitioning scheme for reliable snapshots of Manjaro system AND /home

[winnie]

@abad.140101

sda2 —> 90GB — BTRFS — /
sda3 —> 900GB BTRFS — /home

Why not one BTRFS filesystem, and then make home its own subvolume? This way you get the most efficient use of your available space, without wasting so much of it (90GB) solely on root.

[Aragorn]

@abad.140101

Is it possible to keep system snapshots on sda2, and /home snapshots on sda3?

Given that / and /home are separate partitions in your example, that’s how it would be by default.

@abad.140101

Is btrfs good for reliable snapshots?

Yes, but see below.

@abad.140101

Is timeshift good for reliable snapshots?

Yes, but…

1. Snapshots are not backups. If you want to make backups, then you need a physically separate drive, with a partition formatted with a Linux-native filesystem.

2. timeshift does not include /home by default — the developer recommends against that — although you can tell it to.

[winnie]

@Aragorn

Snapshots are not backups.

I’ll have to correct you there, since there seems to be a conflation with the terms “backups” and “snapshots”.

Here is the “proper” way to explain it:

(clears throat)

Snapshots. Are. NOT. Backups.

Maybe with some fireworks exploding into neon letters can also help get the message across.

[abad.140101]

@winnie

Why not one BTRFS filesystem, and then make home its own subvolume? This way you get the most efficient use of your available space, without wasting so much of it (90GB) solely on root.

1. Because I also want separate snapshots of /home.
2. My documents are around 100GB (may grow to 150GB), largely pdf, text, libreoffice docs

For backup I use external harddisk.

[winnie]

@abad.140101

1. Because I also want separate snapshots of /home.

Snapshots can be done on a per-subvolume basis.

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@abad.140101

2. My documents are around 100GB (may grow to 150GB), largely pdf, text, libreoffice docs

Subvolumes are not partitions nor block devices. You don’t “size them” upon creation. (You can create “quotas”, but that’s out of the scope of this discussion.)

[zbe]

How many topics do you need to open about the same thing?

[abad.140101]

Yes. For backup I regularly use external harddisk. Moot question is, whether or not 90/900 gb for / and /home is reasonable ratio for Manjaro system and my documents (around 100GB which may grow to 150GB), largely pdf, text, libreoffice docs ???

[abad.140101]

@winnie

Subvolumes are not partitions nor block devices. You don’t “size them” upon creation. (You can create “quotas”, but that’s out of the scope of this discussion.)

I am puzzled, because an experienced member suggested separate partition for /home for reliable snapshot of Documents. I am myself not good at linux, else I would not have posed the question.

[winnie]

@abad.140101

I am puzzled, because an experienced member suggested separate partition for /home for reliable snapshot of Documents.

You’re sure they weren’t referring to subvolumes, and advising against including @home (i.e, /home) in your Timeshift snapshots?

Partitions are not the same as subvolumes.

---

And your question (for this topic) was already answered here:

What is the preferable partitioning scheme for RELIABLE snapshots of / as well as /home?

Preferable is doing only snapshots of /root (subvolume @). /home should not have snapshots. Better use for example borg and vorta is a good GUI for that: Compression and de-duplication included. Just create new subvolume for user files. Think of timeshift like creating a system recovery point on Windows. Obviously it should only include system files and not user files.

[abad.140101]

@winnie

You’re sure they weren’t referring to subvolumes, and advising against including @home (i.e, /home) in your Timeshift snapshots?

Ok. In that case /home will remain subvolume of larger btrfs partition. Same as my present partitioning.

[abad.140101]

@What is the preferable partitioning scheme for RELIABLE snapshots of / as well as /home?

Preferable is doing only snapshots of /root (subvolume @)

Ok. I give up my quest for snapshots of /home and remain contented with backup on external HDD every few months.

Thank you all for inputs. Snapshot of /root (subvolume @) failed to restore 2 days back. Forced to clean install Manjaro again.

If there exist a fail-safe and step-by-step guide to (i) partitioning, (ii) Manjaro installation and (iii) taking/restoring snapshots, please share. Else people like me would learn hardway, stumbling on mistakes.

[maycne.sonahoz]

@abad.140101

fail-safe

Thing is, from quickly reading your previous threads, no one found what caused your issues to begin with. I’ll sound pessimistic, but even if you take all the precautions available, there is absolutely no warranty they won’t happen again…

[andreas85]

@abad.140101

Is it possible to keep system snapshots on sda2, and /home snapshots on sda3?

Yes

@abad.140101

Is btrfs good for reliable snapshots?

Yes

@abad.140101

Is timeshift good for reliable snapshots?

I do use snapper

Look with forumsearch for “Timeshift” and decide yourself

Tip:

Use btrfs with 2 Devices and RAID

You find good Information about Btrfs in the wiki

Btrfs

[remark]

Previously I used full disk encryption with the /home as a subvolume.

When trying to restore from snapshot boot files could not be reached, due encryption and restored system would boot.

Now I have a seperate encrypted home partition and / system partition with boot files not encrypted…

Restoring and booting works now perfect.

[Zesko]

@remark

Now I have a seperate encrypted home partition and / system partition with boot files not encrypted

There is another way: Linux Kernels in /boot and /boot/efi for GRUB menu should not be encrypted.
Restoring at booting work fine too.

[remark]

@Zesko

There is another way: Linux Kernels in /boot and /boot/efi for GRUB menu should not be encrypted.

Great, is there an instruction how to do this? With the calemares installer I don’t get that result.

[abad.140101]

@maycne.sonahoz

Thing is, from quickly reading your previous threads, no one found what caused your issues to begin with.

Yes. I failed to communicate something.

[abad.140101]

@remark

Now I have a seperate encrypted home partition and / system partition with boot files not encrypted…

Restoring and booting works now perfect.

In my case, I do not need encryption. Next time I will test restore before populating /home

[winnie]

@remark

Great, is there an instruction how to do this? With the calemares installer I don’t get that result.

It used to be easily accomplished with manjaro-architect which hasn’t been updated in a while.

But for anything that goes outside of the standard installation partitioning scheme, you can prepare your partitions, encrypted containers, logical volumes, subvolumes, filesystems, etc, ahead of time, and then use the “Manual” option during installation to tell Manjaro what to use and how to mount it. (It will also require entering a chroot environment before rebooting to make the necessary edits to fstab, crypttab, grub, and whatever else that is relevant to your setup.)

[abad.140101]

@abad.140101

If there exist a fail-safe and step-by-step guide to (i) partitioning, (ii) Manjaro installation and (iii) taking/restoring snapshots

For new users who are not good at linux, and who get to this post,

• here is a link to step-by-step tutorial on setting up an incremental backup / restore of BTRFS subvolume snapshots — How to Backup Btrfs Snapshots to External Drives
• here is a v good link suggested by @andreas85 for btrfs — Btrfs - Manjaro
• Snapshots are good for restoring Manjaro system. As for backup of user data at /home, @megavolt has suggested Vorta (https://vorta.borgbase.com/) which is a backup client for macOS and Linux desktops. It integrates the mighty Borg Backup with your favorite desktop environment to protect your data from disk failure, ransomware and theft.