MX Linux Forum

Posted: **Fri Jun 21, 2024 11:31 am**

Hi everyone. What's the best way to backup the entire state of a machine? If it makes a difference all of mine use MX KDE, although it should work fine on XFCE as well right?
I was thinking of using cloning software, but there must be a way that the updates only add the new data, not start from the beginning and redo all. I've heard of Pika, but I have never used it and I'm not sure if it backs up not just all my files, but also the OS and my configurations of it. Also, there is the question of the external drive that the backup will be done on. In cloning, it has to be the same size (although larger also works). However, that means the drive can only be used for this purpose. Is there a way to backup everything and be able to have a folder in the external drive to put other things on it?
Thank you!

Posted: **Fri Jun 21, 2024 12:06 pm**

Sparky wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 11:31 am Also, there is the question of the external drive that the backup will be done on. In cloning, it has to be the same size (although larger also works). However, that means the drive can only be used for this purpose.

Clonezilla supports creating an image that can be stored offline just about anywhere there's space to hold it. The image is just a collection of compressed files that can be used by Clonezilla to restore one or more devices later. There's no need to make a full, functional copy on a dedicated drive. I keep a bunch of different Clonezilla images on an external hard drive I use for backup and repair.

Posted: **Fri Jun 21, 2024 12:11 pm**

Sparky wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 11:31 am... What's the best way to backup the entire state of a machine?
... the OS and my configurations of it ...

MX-Snapshot !

Posted: **Fri Jun 21, 2024 1:06 pm**

aika wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 12:11 pm
Sparky wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 11:31 am... What's the best way to backup the entire state of a machine?
... the OS and my configurations of it ...
MX-Snapshot !

MX-Snapshot is great, and if used properly it can be a life saver ... however, that is NOT a backup utility. (And and any user with a serious amount of data needs something else. )

+1 on Clonezilla - just remember... your only as good as the last time it ran !!!

and if you want a true backup strategy , then imo you should:
_ Timeshift set for a daily backup of the system,
_ Something like BackInTime to back up your home and data ! ( Daily, incremental backups are fast and you can send this to any space that support symlinks)
_ MX Snapshot of the system - every month or so.

Posted: **Fri Jun 21, 2024 1:18 pm**

MX Snapshot for the system.
FreeFilesync for data backup.
Save to an external disk not connected all the time. Connect it for the backup and when you finish disconnect.
And you can put to this disk anything more you want if there is space left.

I trust this method much more than cloning with any utility used. MX Snapshot it's the great card of MX Linux. Take advantage of this.

Posted: **Fri Jun 21, 2024 2:17 pm**

CharlesV wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 1:06 pm
aika wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 12:11 pm
Sparky wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 11:31 am... What's the best way to backup the entire state of a machine?
... the OS and my configurations of it ...
MX-Snapshot !
MX-Snapshot is great, and if used properly it can be a life saver ... however, that is NOT a backup utility. (And and any user with a serious amount of data needs something else. )

+1 on Clonezilla - just remember... your only as good as the last time it ran !!!

and if you want a true backup strategy , then imo you should:
_ Timeshift set for a daily backup of the system,
_ Something like BackInTime to back up your home and data ! ( Daily, incremental backups are fast and you can send this to any space that support symlinks)
_ MX Snapshot of the system - every month or so.

Thanks. That sounds like a plan, as well as looking for an external online solution to keep the clonezilla files.

Posted: **Fri Jun 21, 2024 3:02 pm**

+1 for zilla. I use it ~ 1/week. I always do a full disk backup though I just realized having a backup of the boot partition itself will come in handy. A full disk backup won't restore a boot part. The very latest release is also recommended which at this time is 3.1.3-8. My boot part, nvme0n1p1, is only ~256mb so that'll take no space. Clonezilla always defaults to a specific data compression that just works and other than making sure you do NOT enable any of the checks (to save a lot of time), it'll run just as fast as if you were to do a snapshot pretty much. FreeFilleSync is just a good program all around for general local file backups (and restores) I just wish I had payed for the pro version it's that good, imo. What really helps is having such a great OS as is MX.
I'm 2 days into using Libretto and am getting ready right now to do my 2nd full disk backup. Plan on snapshotting that to my HM90 minipc in my sig, eventually. My PhoenixLie win10 pc is going to remain as it is with no updates at all forever jk.

There is an OS based on MX called nutshell-acorn-20230712 which uses containers and is touted as a secure OS I might try eventually. Sounds interesting.

Posted: **Sat Jun 22, 2024 8:11 pm**

Sparky wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 11:31 am... the OS and my configurations of it ...

CharlesV wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 1:06 pm... MX-Snapshot is great, and if used properly it can be a life saver ... however, that is NOT a backup utility. (And and any user with a serious amount of data needs something else. ) ...

Sparky wants to back up the operating system and configurations, not "My Documents". MX Snapshot is a new fork of Remastersys, which was originally used to back up the entire operating system before other backup programs existed. Using TimeShift on the same disk, for example, is less secure.

Sparky wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 2:17 pm... looking for an external online solution to keep the clonezilla files.

What do you do if your system no longer goes online or no longer boots?

Posted: **Sat Jun 22, 2024 8:17 pm**

aika wrote: ↑Sat Jun 22, 2024 8:11 pm
Sparky wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 11:31 am... the OS and my configurations of it ...

CharlesV wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 1:06 pm... MX-Snapshot is great, and if used properly it can be a life saver ... however, that is NOT a backup utility. (And and any user with a serious amount of data needs something else. ) ...
Sparky wants to back up the operating system and configurations, not "My Documents". MX Snapshot is a new fork of Remastersys, which was originally used to back up the entire operating system before other backup programs existed. Using TimeShift on the same disk, for example, is less secure.

I know what MX Snapshot is. And sorry your wrong, read what the OP posted! He asked about System AND Files . (entire STATE including data )

Posted: **Sat Jun 22, 2024 8:27 pm**

"What do you do if your system no longer goes online or no longer boots?"
Move to the backup cave

Posted: **Sat Jun 22, 2024 8:36 pm**

CharlesV wrote: ↑Sat Jun 22, 2024 8:17 pm... sorry your wrong, read what the OP posted! He asked about System AND Files . (entire STATE including data )

Sorry, I didn't pay attention to the title when translating. My document and media files are in separate folders outside the operating system and can easily copied by hand, so why do young people need a backup program for them?

Posted: **Sat Jun 22, 2024 8:48 pm**

Considering some people understand that their data can be FAR more spread out than "My Documents" ( Which frankly isnt even a linux 'thing' ... ) The obvious question is why you think that is ALL you need?

Young or old... you obviously have not crashed a drive or lost enough data to fully realize what is being asked here. ( Maybe it is translation? )

Having spent 35 years of helping people recover from either not backing up, or 'thought they backed up everything' ... I think the OP has a VERY viable question. And reading his intent should be pretty obvious since he is talking about imaging the disk as a possible method to "backup everything".

Posted: **Sat Jun 22, 2024 9:16 pm**

CharlesV wrote: ↑Sat Jun 22, 2024 8:48 pm... lost enough data ...

All my personal data fits on a large USB memory stick and my entire OS-MX-Snapshot fits on a small memory stick because it doesn't have Flatpak. That's probably the difference or misunderstanding.

Posted: **Sun Jun 23, 2024 3:30 am**

I make regular snapshots, although that does nothing, it is just like a picture.

Nice to install from though, saves some work reinstalling things.

Other than that, all important hidden files (program configs and such) get backupped to a different drive, which content in turn gets uploaded to the cloud. That last one saved my butt once in the past.

And of course all important files get stored there as well.

Then .. don't let that storage hardware get too old, speaking from experience on that one as well.

But total system and files? Daily snapshots turned into live usb .

Posted: **Sun Jun 23, 2024 8:54 pm**

Eadwine Rose wrote: ↑Sun Jun 23, 2024 3:30 am... snapshots, although that does nothing, it is just like a picture ...

Why although that does nothing?

My regular OS snapshots with all hidden config files (without private media files) get backupped as live system. This allows me to access my emails in the live system and log in to websites automatically. A new, unchanged MX Linux is useless for me because my MX system has many changes and adjustments like a custom distribution.

Posted: **Mon Jun 24, 2024 3:11 am**

It does nothing because it does not get updated. If you make a snapshot now, in two weeks things may have changed a LOT, that snapshot is then outdated. That is what I mean with nothing. It is like taking a picture, as I explained. It is a moment in time. Unless you take regular new pictures, as I explained.

Posted: **Mon Jun 24, 2024 5:18 am**

Here is what I do:

1) Data:
unlike the experience of another poster on a recent thread, I've been very happy using LuckyBackup (preinstalled on MX) to backup my data onto an external drive. This means a backup of the shared Data partition used by all my distros. I've been using Luckybackup for ages, through many releases of MX.
The Data partition contains not just my documents, data, music, etc. , but also my cheatsheet of key commands and other notes, the key configs of the distros, copies of customisation elements like conkies, icons, gtk and plasma themes, wallpaper, etc.

To me, backing up the Data partition is the most important. I have copies in this external drive (usually kept away and unconnected to my PC), and also in NAS storage (often connected to the PC).

2) WHOLE System(s) including /home:
Plural, since I have many distros on my desktop PC. Once in a while, while I'm booted into distro A, I run Gparted and copy the partitions of OTHER distros (because unlike distro A which is in use, their partitions won't be mounted and locked) and paste them onto a different external drive that contains the partition backups of all my distros.

I generally install all my distros with / and /home together in one partition, so it's just one partition per distro to be copied and pasted.

I may not backup all those other distros in one go, just what I have time for, during that session on my PC. I prioritise backing up my rolling distros since they potentially might encounter more problems in an update.

Then when I am booted into another distro (not distro A), I can copy and paste distro A's partition into that external drive with Gparted.

3) System(s), no /home -- Timeshift:
This is only used on my 4 Arch-based distros.

I don't bother to use it on MX because I've not had any issues - ever - that require a rollback. YMMV. In any case if anything were to go wrong, I'll just paste back the partition copy from my external drive. It'll be an older copy, but Debian Stable updates are very minimal and problem-free compared to Arch and other rolling distros.

Other Tools:
I actually have custom grub entries on my PC pointing to the live ISOs of MX, MX workbench and clonezilla saved on another partition. This is in addition to having a live USB MX23 just in case. With these live options, I can run Timeshift to restore back any TImeshift snapshots made, or run other MX repair tools.

I have used clonezilla to make snap shots of my PCLinuxOS, Fedora and Solus installs in the past, but I'm lazy and seldom do it. My view is that if these distros ever die on me and can't be restored using the gparted partition copies, then c'est la vie, I'm not going to bother to reinstall them.

Custom grub entries in /boot/grub/custom.cfg (this file is also backed up in Data partition) :
This is what makes it easy to just copy and paste back a partition copy in to my PC's drives. I don't need to worry about conflicting kernel versions in the grub entries if I paste back an old partition copy with older kernels, because each partition is labelled and my custom.cfg entries point to the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file itself in every labelled partition, instead of specific kernel numbers.

Come to the worst I have my MX live USB and can use the MX rescue grub tools to search for kernels and/or grub.cfg in each partition.

Posted: **Mon Jun 24, 2024 5:22 am**

Eadwine Rose wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2024 3:11 am It does nothing because it does not get updated. If you make a snapshot now, in two weeks things may have changed a LOT, that snapshot is then outdated. That is what I mean with nothing. It is like taking a picture, as I explained. It is a moment in time. Unless you take regular new pictures, as I explained.

Well, if I make a snapshot of my system right after installation with all installed packages configurations etc, and these are only applications and preferences that are rarely changed, then, lets say one year later doing a re-install with it, all I have to do is the apt updates and will still save me alot of work setting everything up, doesnt it?
(Talking about a system without any personal data, just packages and preferences changed).

Posted: **Mon Jun 24, 2024 5:36 am**

It will, yeah.

Posted: **Mon Jun 24, 2024 5:45 am**

debianix wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2024 5:22 am Well, if I make a snapshot of my system right after installation with all installed packages configurations etc, and these are only applications and preferences that are rarely changed, then, lets say one year later doing a re-install with it, all I have to do is the apt updates and will still save me alot of work setting everything up, doesnt it?

In theory? Yes. You can archive an MX system with MX Snapshot, come back to that snapshot a year later, and pick it up again. In practice, I just booted a copy of mx-23.2_sysVinit-only-respin_x64.iso, released in January 2024. It immediately recognized 236 new updates, weighing in at about 462 MB of data that would need to be re-downloaded if I were to install a new machine with it.

MX-23.3_sysvinit_only_x64.iso was released only about a day or two ago and contains most or all of these updates. It's only been about five months between these two ISOs. A year of updates isn't exactly something to sniff at, especially if you plan on installing your snapshot to multiple machines. I like making a fresh up-to-date snapshot, for installing or just as a rescue live session, every 6-to-8 weeks or so.

Posted: **Mon Jun 24, 2024 5:53 am**

DukeComposed wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2024 5:45 am
In theory? Yes. You can archive an MX system with MX Snapshot, come back to that snapshot a year later, and pick it up again. In practice, I just booted a copy of mx-23.2_sysVinit-only-respin_x64.iso, released in January 2024. It immediately recognized 236 new updates, weighing in at about 462 MB of data that would need to be re-downloaded if I were to install a new machine with it.

MX-23.3_sysvinit_only_x64.iso was released only about a day or two ago and contains most or all of these updates. It's only been about five months between these two ISOs. A year of updates isn't exactly something to sniff at, especially if you plan on installing your snapshot to multiple machines. I like making a fresh up-to-date snapshot, for installing or just as a rescue live session, every 6-to-8 weeks or so.

Like I said in my post above, compared to Arch updates, Debian Stable updates are really minimal.

Every 2 weeks I update an Arch-based distro (I rotate their update days). In 2 weeks, the updates can be as large as 1 to 2GB.

But I agree that if the snapshot is going to be used on multiple machines, it's best to make more frequent snapshots. Also, if you have a monthly cap on downloadable data, then you shouldn't let updates accumulate.

On my side, I make my Gparted partition copies every 2-3 months.

Posted: **Mon Jun 24, 2024 5:54 am**

Interesting, how do you do that? The partition copies.

I guess I missed something in gparted?

Posted: **Mon Jun 24, 2024 6:18 am**

Eadwine Rose wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2024 5:54 am Interesting, how do you do that? The partition copies.

I guess I missed something in gparted?

1. prepare your backup external drive so that it has partitions that are bigger than the ones you want to copy over (eg if your PC's MX21 partition is 40GB, I make a 45GB partition on the external drive for it). I use gpt partition tables and ext4 formatting (all my PC's partitions use ext4)
2. Connect your backup drive to PC
3. open Gparted on your machine, it will read all the partitions on all your connected drives (ie, devices), including the external drive.
4. click on a PC partition and press the "copy" button on the toolbar.
5. Navigate to the ext drive and click on the partition you want to paste your PC partition into. Press the "paste" button.

6. Check the warning and details in the popup and if correct, click to proceed.

7. That just sets up the task list. Now you can press the "Go" or "Apply" button for the copying and pasting to start.

It will take maybe 10 mins for each partition. [I do each partition one by one, I don't set up more than 1 task at a time.]

ADDED - all my partitions are labelled so I know which is which. The copy and paste process will copy over the labels as well.

Posted: **Mon Jun 24, 2024 8:13 am**

DukeComposed wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2024 5:45 am Yes. You can archive an MX system with MX Snapshot, come back to that snapshot a year later, and pick it up again.

A year of updates isn't exactly something to sniff at, especially if you plan on installing your snapshot to multiple machines. I like making a fresh up-to-date snapshot, for installing or just as a rescue live session, every 6-to-8 weeks or so.

Alright, I absolutely can see why u prefer doing snapshots on a quite frequent basis.

But I would like to have a "basic snapshot", with nothing personal installed yet, that I can refer to whenever I want to install an MX system on a new machine, which already contains all my favorite basic programs and configurations of KDE etc., and where I then only have to add personal data, add Thunderbird profile folders and customize the specific preferences of each user without having to set everything up from scratch.

A snapshot would be sufficient for this, wouldn't it? To exaggerate: If I put a 1 or 2 year old MX snapshot from such a system into a brand new computer today, with enough time, patience and disk space for all the updates, then the end result would not differ significantly from an installation that I perform from a regularly kept fresh MX snapshot, would it?
I don't intend to go to such extremes, but I still want to be aware of the possibilities and limitations of this tool within my use case.

The thing is, when I created that "basic snapshot", then I move on to more specific program installations and settings that are different for different computers, users and scenarios, and which I prefer to set up anew and individually each time.
The basic snapshot should only represent my personal favorite basic configuration, so to speak. Whether the updates take 10 minutes or 6 hours after installation is less important to me as long as everything works correctly in the end.

If this is impossible in this way, I would consider buying an inexpensive extra computer on which I only have the basic installation / basic configuration installed, but which I don't use otherwise and only carry out updates once a month. If I then need my "basic snapshot" that I described above, be it for distribution or reinstallation or whatever, I could create an up-to-date snapshot directly from this dedicated computer and that's it?

Posted: **Mon Jun 24, 2024 8:17 am**

That's how mx monthly iso snapshots are done. Run an installation of mx in VM or another machine /partition, update monthly, then generate a new iso with mx-snapshot.

Many ways to use the snapshot tool.

Posted: **Mon Jun 24, 2024 8:40 am**

asqwerth wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2024 8:17 am That's how mx monthly iso snapshots are done. Run an installation of mx in VM or another machine /partition, update monthly, then generate a new iso with mx-snapshot.

wow! your solution is so simple, so obvious and yet, for me, so endlessly ingenious. Because I tend to overcomplicate things, I often don't see the most obvious solutions. Since I've only used VM's to test other distros so far, I didn't even think of this idea. One more reason to install VirtualBox as soon as possible

Posted: **Mon Jun 24, 2024 11:25 am**

asqwerth wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2024 6:18 am 1. prepare your backup external drive so that it has partitions that are bigger than the ones you want to copy over (eg if your PC's MX21 partition is 40GB, I make a 45GB partition on the external drive for it). I use gpt partition tables and ext4 formatting (all my PC's partitions use ext4)
2. Connect your backup drive to PC
3. open Gparted on your machine, it will read all the partitions on all your connected drives (ie, devices), including the external drive.
4. click on a PC partition and press the "copy" button on the toolbar.
5. Navigate to the ext drive and click on the partition you want to paste your PC partition into. Press the "paste" button.

6. Check the warning and details in the popup and if correct, click to proceed.

7. That just sets up the task list. Now you can press the "Go" or "Apply" button for the copying and pasting to start.

It will take maybe 10 mins for each partition. [I do each partition one by one, I don't set up more than 1 task at a time.]

ADDED - all my partitions are labelled so I know which is which. The copy and paste process will copy over the labels as well.

Ohhhh is THAT what that copy button is for. Nifty! Thanks for explaining

Posted: **Mon Jun 24, 2024 4:30 pm**

Best total system AND files backup?

I have never used it, but it sounds very interesting:
https://kopia.io/

Posted: **Thu Jun 27, 2024 5:00 pm**

"MX-23.3_sysvinit_only_x64.iso was released only about a day or two ago..."
Do I have to install clean to run it over 23.3 regular? And more importantly where is the download? Sourceforge is no help.

Posted: **Thu Jun 27, 2024 6:39 pm**

davidy wrote: ↑Thu Jun 27, 2024 5:00 pm "MX-23.3_sysvinit_only_x64.iso was released only about a day or two ago..."
Do I have to install clean to run it over 23.3 regular? And more importantly where is the download? Sourceforge is no help.

Links are in the first post in the dolphin_oracle's respins thread. Given the amount of work needed to make a sysvinit-only respin, I have to imagine a clean install is de rigueur. Keep in mind it's not officially supported and should be considered for entertainment purposes only. That being said, I've been running the sysvinit-only respin since December on a daily driver without issue.

Posted: **Fri Jun 28, 2024 3:25 am**

I use MX snapshot once every week and make a full backup (system files and data) to a USB. The snapshot is about 16 GB. I keep four of these USBs which I rotate using the oldest one every time. In addition to this I run Timeshift and I keep 3 weekly and 5 daily snapshots on an external disk. Furthermore I use BackInTime for data backups twice a day, the backups being kept on an external disk. Finally I sometimes make a data backup to the cloud.

Posted: **Fri Jun 28, 2024 9:35 am**

I use mx-snapshot then live-usb-maker to put in on a USB drive about once a week.

About once a month I use Rescuezilla to make a disk image to an external drive. https://rescuezilla.com/

Posted: **Mon Jul 01, 2024 6:59 pm**

Wrong thread.

Posted: **Mon Jul 01, 2024 7:08 pm**

DukeComposed wrote: ↑Thu Jun 27, 2024 6:39 pm
davidy wrote: ↑Thu Jun 27, 2024 5:00 pm "MX-23.3_sysvinit_only_x64.iso was released only about a day or two ago..."
Do I have to install clean to run it over 23.3 regular? And more importantly where is the download? Sourceforge is no help.
The actual iso is at: master.dl.sourceforge.net/project/do-test-linux/MX-23_snapshots
Thanks a lot. While searching I came across a sysvinit (and sysd) iso from alien-tech called 'Alien OS Regolith Prime'. A 4.2gb iso that incorporates mx-tools and is based on deb12.6. There are so many variations of mx it's almost impossible to keep track. Quite an accomplishment to say the least.

Posted: **Thu Aug 08, 2024 7:45 pm**

aika wrote: ↑Sat Jun 22, 2024 8:36 pm so why do young people need a backup program for them?

Thanks for the compliment. I'm very young at heart, but I'm pretty sure I am quite older in physical age. In any case, I like automation, it saves me time, which at my age is precious.

Posted: **Fri Aug 09, 2024 1:07 am**

And from another oldie...
In a previous life one of my tasks was the care and feeding of a system backup of ~300 2GB and 3GB disks (a long time ago...)
I developed a deep respect for correct backup procedures.
1. If you have never restored a full system, you backup is at best doubtful.
2. If your backup schedule includes the word 'about' ('about every month', 'about every few days') you are an accident waiting to happen.
3. Real backup security require several generations (at least three, depending on your needs) stored separately.

My personal preference: On my 'main' computer - A white box desktop - I make a full disk clone once a month, rotating three 1TB hard disks. Luckily my system and data together add up to less than 1TB. In the Desktop I also have a smaller bootable Clonezilla disk with enough space for several (~4 - 5) compressed disk images, also monthly. The first week-end of each month backup takes less than two hours. I consider the time spent insurance.
Also before any major change (large update, install, re-config, or eclipse of the moon) I run a snapshot to a USB key.
An advantage of snapshot is it's a short time to restore individual files, directories, and it can be run on a different (e.g. laptop) PC.
As for the laptop: nothing major on it. Vanilla system easily re-installed. Hope I don't lose it, but that's as far as it goes. Anything I need can be copied from the PC.

Posted: **Sat Aug 10, 2024 1:45 pm**

Hi,
My strategy is reliant on initial access to a Windows system but as one of my two desktop PC systems is a dual boot MX-23 / Windows 7 arrangement this was not a problem. For system backup I use a live Macrium Reflect usb memory stick on my other desktop PC which is solely MX-23. There are limitations such as no incremental backup availability and one cannot access the file system in the backup image as is possible within Windows but neither are a problem for me.

Initial access to a Windows system is necessary to create the live usb media via the installed Macrium Reflect (there is no Linux installable version of Macrium Reflect). My version running in Windows 7 is version 7.2 build 4601 - this version was out in 2019 so it is quite old but is new enough to work with WinPE 5. This, or later versions of WinPE are essential for the creation of the live usb media. In the dual boot arrangement I run the installed Macrium Reflect from Windows - it has no problems creating the backup image files for any of the partitions including the ext4 partition that has the MX installation. The backup image files are saved to an external usb hdd.

To back up the partitions on my standalone MX system, I boot the Macrium Reflect live usb memory stick. I backup the primary boot partition and then the primary main partition. The created image backup files, as with the dual boot system, are saved to an external usb hdd.

A Macrium Reflect image file will contain everything that is on the backed-up partition, data files, system files etc. If it becomes necessary to reinstate a partition, then it is quite a simple process to boot from the live Macrium Reflect media, connect up the storage device containing the image backup file, locate it and and start the recovery process.

I tend to create image backup files once a month. The backups can be compacted when created although I choose not to. Normally i keep the last two or three months backups saved and delete the oldest when creating a new one. As I have said, there is no incremental backup available with this free version of Macrium Reflect and one cannot access individual data files from the backup image file so it's a bit of all or nothing. For my data files I also backup using grsync which I find extremely user friendly and perfect for everyday incremental backing up of all my data files. This in conjunction with Grive2, Onedrive, pCloud and Mega for backup to the cloud provides a a backup regime that suits my requirements and not too demanding on my (or my lack of) technical capability.

Cheers

MX Linux Forum

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