Help me find a solution for disk backup under Linux

Question

linux

I'm going to change the hard drive to an SSD in my laptop and set up backup (not versioned) copying to the hard drive installed in the docking station (there is a full-fledged SATA 3) using cron or when installing the laptop in the dock.
It is necessary to decide on software tools, well, or abandon the idea if existing tools cannot solve the problem under the following conditions:

1. The hard drive, removed from the docking station and installed in a laptop, will allow you to boot from it and continue working from the last backup state of the system .
2. Backing up the contents of at least three partitions: c Linux (any supported stable file system that does not kill SSD) and two Windows (system NTFS and "Reserved by the system")
3. Starting backup from Linux.
4. Adequacy of copying time and load on the processor / input-output during it (i.e. do not copy the entire partition again if several files have changed, or do not compare checksums for all files of the same size with the same last modification time)
5. Not clear , what to do with UUIDs of partitions when backing up fstab: will the system survive mounting partitions with the same UUIDs as those already mounted and in fstab partitions?

As far as I understand, the main problem is backing up NTFS partitions from Linux, since you need to save file permissions and other information that is not displayed in Linux.

Question asked at the request of Boba_Fett

Answer 1

1. First, make a full copy of the disk with the dd command, then do it regularly, for example, by cron, sync, after mounting

rsync -av --exclude=/dev --exclude=/proc / /media/disk

2. If you use rsync + ntfs-3g, for example, there should be no problems. Unfortunately, I don’t remember what kind of FS there is on “Reserved by the system”, it may be easier for dd if it is standard 100M.
3. In the case of rsync, there will be no problems with running from Linux
4. The difference will be copied, the load should not be large.
5. fstab can be tritely run with sed, for example, after a sink, having previously received a UUID for each necessary section, if they differ. As mentioned above, the UUID can be changed. But in theory, problems with the same UUID are unlikely.
I won’t lie, it’s only theoretical, you have to try it, for example, to evaluate the load.

Answer 2

If the machine is not constantly loaded, you can, say, run a script at night using cron with something like cat /dev/sda > /mnt/dock/backups/backup.img, having previously mounted the disk on the docking station in the same script, and after unmounting it. At my old job on the server, 250 gig SATA was thus backed up on the same screw for an hour and a half. All partitions are copied in this way. If necessary, you can then use tools like testdisk or WinImage to pull files from such backups.

Answer 3

Even with commercial solutions such as Akronis, it is very difficult to fulfill all the points. Tk is either a usable fs image or an incremental backup - you need to choose one thing. It seems to me that it is worth looking in the direction of lvm snapshots - at least this way an image is backed up from which you can boot and the process itself is almost in live mode. It's better than offline partimage/partlcone. But I don't know what will happen with ntfs.
Do this once a week or less, and run the traditional per-file incremental daily.

Answer 4

Clonezilla?