I have always used the default backup program, which i understood to be Deja-dup. Up to now it has been simple.
Since my last backups, the program has been changed and now requires 2X the total required space at the target to be available.
this is a real pain and I would hope there is a way to turn this feature off.
It still refuses, even when I comply e.g. I deleted everything on one of my backup disks, giving me 1.7 TB free, which is what the program said was necessary to start, yet it still says the target is too small.
I tried Gsync, but it copies entire filesystem outright, rather than compacting into backup format like deja-dup. It is also incredibly slow. AFAIK, it does not do incremental backups. The other backup possibilities I read about do not seem appropriate for me. Would like to stay with Deja-dup but this 2X space requirement is not really workable.
Grsync is slow for the first backup, but the subsequent incremental processes are much quicker. My incremental (i.e. subsequent backups) for 14GB of data take approx. 60 seconds. Only new or changed files/folders are then copied/replaced.
One major advantage of (g)rsync is that the backup is not compressed.
You can easily retrieve one or two files without having to decompress your backup.
Your choice of backup utility is very much dependent on the amount of data and the availability of storage.
It does do incremental. An incremental with maybe 20GB of new data ran about 5 minutes. I will try it for a few weeks.
For large backups like I am doing, an initial full backup can run 12 hours or more, but that is preferable to having to maintain 2X the space I actually need.
Thanks!
I use grsync to do backups on demand. Incremental backups are definitely possible. Its one of the options. I also use grsync to make multiple copies of /home on multiple external disks. Can’t have too many backups, LOL.