After the great hard drive format of November 2013 (which I accidentally caused), I decided that it was definitely time to get a backup on the go. I have some of my files saved to my SpiderOak Hive folder so they are safely in the cloud and the FCM data has always been in the safe hands of Google Drive, but the rest? Well…
Installing
Installing Back In Time is done using your distro package/software manager. There is a Back In Time for Gnome (backintime-gnome) and one for KDE (backintime-kde), so choose whichever you prefer.
Backing Up
Actually doing a backup is pretty simple. Load Back In Time, then work your way across the tabs entering the relevant information such as where to save your snapshot (aka: backup), which folder(s) to backup, how often backups should be deleted, how often to backup, etc. You may want to exclude things like Ubuntu One, DropBox and SpiderOak Hive as they’re already backed up to the cloud. Include them if you want to be super safe
Snapshot!
With your information in, it’s time to take your first snapshot using the button at the top left of the window. That’s it. You’re done!
I have mine set to backup my entire /home directory every day at 2am (when I’m asleep). At the moment the backup (and the original /home) is only 100GB. The drive the backup is stored on (separate from the original files) is 1TB, so more than enough for a good while.
The good thing about Back In Time is that it backs up only new, or recently altered, files, so it’s not backing up everything every time. Only the new files/edits.
If you’ve always thought your files were safe and it would never happen to you?… Take it from me. Make a backup and do it now as you could, at any time, lose everything. Don’t take the chance! Get out that old dusty hard drive and use it as a backup device.
Back In Time website: http://backintime.le-web.org/