Need non-versioning backup tool wanted.

[Joel64]

The few backup tools I've looked at so far offer versioned backups or synced backups.
I won't want either one of those. I would like to just simply back my files up. If I delete from source, it doesn't delete from destination, and vice versa.

Are there any tools that will do that?

[Schwarzer Kater]

rsync has a lot of options…

But if I understand you correctly, what you describe is a simple "copy data to destination, next time delete destination and copy data to destination again"?
Or do you want to copy new files only, and not the ones you modified and keep everything? Or the modified ones too? The latter would contradict your "delete there, but not here" goal, wouldn't it?

Do you want to automate this, e.g. do this every time you start your computer? Then you could write a very simple script.
Otherwise you could perhaps simply use a file manager like Dolphin - some clicks and then drag-and-drop…

Depending on your specific goals possibly Kup ( --> System Settings --> Backup) or Back In Time (use the PPA for 22.04 LTS) could do this, too - perhaps you can give some more details?

[claydoh]

You beat me to the questions, Schwarzer Kater

The main clarification is if the goal is simply copying files to a directory, but letting the old stuff pile up, and up.
Or perhaps individual zip files whenever you run a backup?

Kup does both versioned archive backups, and syncing (not a backup). I use it for both.
Backintime is a versioned backup tool, as well.
Kbackup is dirt simple, but it does zip it all to a tar file. And needs to be run manually.

For something as simple as copying files from one place to another, without the extra features a very basic bash script can be used for that, a short line. Or Dolphin using drag-n-drop when one feels the need, and so on. This might be why such simpler tools with fewer settings are harder to locate in the mostly volunteer F/OSS sphere.


Rsync on the command line is perfect tool as it has useful options for things like deleting files (or not). There are a few GUI front-ends for it, like Grsync, but they don't have scheduling capabilities themselves. neither does Kbackup.

I think FreeFileSync may have all the options and does scheduling. That may be a good place to start.

But more info on one's needs and use case will help find a good tool.

[Joel64]

Sorry for the confusion. I'll try to clarify.

On Windows I used Syncback. I could set it to back up files to my external hard drive. That's all it would do, copy files to the drive, nothing else.
If I deleted a file on my computer, it would not get deleted on the backup drive.
If I deleted a file on the backup drive, it would not get deleted on the computer.
It was straight backup, as if I had a hard copy document, photocopied it, and put the original in one place and the copy in another place.
And it was automated. Syncback would ignore files that had no changes, and overwrite files with changes.

Yes, the old stuff does pile up, but that's okay. To save space on the computer, I like to keep seldom or rarely used files on the backup drive.

I'll look at the suggestions above. Thanks for that.

[claydoh]

Deja-dup (I forgot about this one) and Pika might be useful ones to look at
Luckybackup is ancient, but also might be worth looking at.

[Schwarzer Kater]

[…]
That's all it would do, copy files to the drive, nothing else.
If I deleted a file on my computer, it would not get deleted on the backup drive.
If I deleted a file on the backup drive, it would not get deleted on the computer.
It was straight backup, as if I had a hard copy document, photocopied it, and put the original in one place and the copy in another place.
And it was automated. Syncback would ignore files that had no changes, and overwrite files with changes.
[…]

This would be something like rsync -ahu --info=progress2 /my/source /my/backup .

Test it with some example scenarios to see if this is what you want.

Then decide how and when you want this to run.

[jglen490]

Another vote for rsync. Yes, it's a command line tool, but I use it as my backup tool. For each backup destination drive, I write a command sequence in a text file. The I copy that from the text file and paste into a Konsole. Right now I have four such entries that I use with four different destination/target drives. It's simple, and just works.

sudo rm -rf /media/john/Backup1/*
sudo rsync -auv /home /opt /media/john/Backup1

sudo rm -rf /media/john/Backup2/*
sudo rsync -auv /home /opt /media/john/Backup2

sudo rm -rf /media/john/Backup3/*
sudo rsync -auv /home /opt /media/john/Backup3

sudo rm -rf /media/john/Backup4/*
sudo rsync -auv /home /opt /media/john/Backup4

I use the rm -rf lines to empty out a drive if needed.

[Schwarzer Kater]

Joel64 : be aware that the lines with rm -rf in jglen490's example remove everything from the backup directories - this is not what you want.
Also note that you don't need sudo at all if you just want to backup files and directories from inside your /home to e.g. an external ext4 drive you are the logical owner of.

[Joel64]

This would be something like rsync -ahu --info=progress2 /my/source /my/backup.

My backup drive is a Seagate One Touch. Part of the path to it is /One Touch/, which rsync doesn't like because of the space between words.
I tried using quotes in various way within the command, but it's not working.
How does rsync handle spaces?

[Snowhog]

Try escaping the space(s).

/One\ Touch/

[Schwarzer Kater]

This should work:
rsync -ahu --info=progress2 '/my/source\ with\ spaces' '/my/One\ Touch/backup'

and this one too:
rsync -ahus --info=progress2 '/my/source with spaces' '/my/One Touch/backup' (better not use with rsync < version 3 --> see current man pages)


PS:
You can always try a test run first with e.g.
rsync -ahuv --dry-run '/my/source/test\ directory' '/my/One\ Touch/backup/test\ directory' (--info=progress2 is replaced by the -v option and --dry-run is added here). The directories have to exist, of course.

[Joel64]

This is somehow not going my way. No matter what I try, while the dry run looks good, the actual run creates an extra folder. For instance, instead of this desired result on the backup drive:

testFolder
- - testFile

I end up with this:
testFolder
--testFolder
----testFile


One test I did (using a folder I don't care about) resulted in this:





And I'm unable to delete any of those folders.

I'll need to do more reading about rsync....

[jglen490]

Joel64 : be aware that the lines with rm -rf in jglen490's example remove everything from the backup directories - this is not what you want.
Also note that you don't need sudo at all if you just want to backup files and directories from inside your /home to e.g. an external ext4 drive you are the logical owner of.

That's true. And, as I said, that's what I use it for "to empty out a drive if needed." I do not use the "u" option in rsync, since it leaves duplicates of files if I move a file somewhere else between backups.

[Schwarzer Kater]

You can play aroud with -u, of course - this was meant for files you change within the backup but not within the source.
Reading the man rsync page is certainly a good idea - you could also start with no options at all (what will certainly not do what you want) and add them one by one until your use case is satisfied.

I would also suggest to look into Back In Time (but do use the PPA for 22.04 !) - IMHO you should be able to tune it more or less to your needs (if need be you can e.g. add rsync options in the expert tab in preferences), but I honestly have no time to look into that, sorry…


PS: Joel64 please always post the command you used in front of posting a result - as trivial as this may sound in certain cases…

[jglen490]

Absolutely try different options and find what works. Most of the GUI based backup tools use rsync under the hood, and a GUI can be useful for configuring things, too.