Looking for a Reliable, Maintenance-Free Backup Solution for Ubuntu 24.04
I’m looking for recommendations on a reliable, easy-to-manage backup solution for my Ubuntu 24.04 system. My goal is to backup about 150GB of data, including files, images, and documents.
My data is currently split between cloud services such as OneDrive and Google Photos, plus some stored locally. I’m exploring offline backup options that also allow for easy portability and give me peace of mind having all the data in one place if ever needed.
In a perfect world, I’d love a backup utility that can hook into the cloud services and pull down copies as well as backup my local data. I realize this may not be possible, so I’m willing to manually download everything and back it up locally.
- Data Size: Approximately 150GB
- External Hardware: SSD with USB 3.0 connection
- Usage: Mainly browser-based activities. I do not need to backup the OS or applications, as I can reinstall these if necessary.
- Backup Type: Offline, using my external SSD
- Bonus Points: Ability to integrate with OneDrive and Google Photos, which has been challenging with GNOME on Ubuntu. I’d love to automatically pull down my Google photos that gets uploaded by family phones, and new onedrive docs, and back them up too
- Functionality: Automated backups with little to no manual intervention required
I would greatly appreciate any recommendations on:
- What backup software would be most suitable for my needs?
- Any specific backup methods or practices to ensure data integrity and easy recovery?
I apologize in advance if this post is too detailed. After lurking and reading a lot of support posts, I got the impression that it might be better to over-supply info and requirements upfront to get the best response rate.
There might just be the perfect system out there to suit my needs so thought I may as well include everything, and if not, I need some places to start. The backup results in the Ubuntu Store App didn’t really inspire me, to be honest.
I’m open to any suggestions.
Timeshift` is a reliable maintenance free package for backup and is intuitive in it’s use.
Addressing concerns about Timeshift being only for system backups, it is configurable under Settings > Users tab to include User Home Directories (which are disabled by default) by indicating a requirement to include all files and under the Filters tab to fine-tune Include and Exclude patterns.
Timeshift can be installed using the command:
sudo apt install timeshift
A beginners guide from It’s FOSS shows how to backup and restore Linux systems (including Ubuntu) in easy to follow steps.