There are a lot of backup options out there for linux, and everyone seems to want to roll their own, which is understandable when there are just so many different environments and setups.

I have a fairly large database of photos, which I really needed to keep backed up, but obviously this will work on any type of file.

First things first, I suggest backing up to an external USB drive, I simply used a spare 250gb drive, and a USB caddy for it, linux automatically detected it, and I was able to mount it from /dev/sda1straight away. Now, for the backup itself, this is stupidly simple, and for simple home use - absolutely perfect for me.

I simply setup a cronjob that copies from my local photo directory, to my USB drive, it's a one-liner which does the following things:

• Copies recursively
• Preserves timestamps and ownership permissions
• Backs up "incrementally" - i.e. it doesn't copy your whole directory each time, only files that are changed.
• Preserves links

cp -au /path/to/photos/ /mnt/backup/

I simply saved this file in the cron.daily folder, and gave it the permissions 755. Now I feel a bit safer with an extra copy. If your drive is permanently attached to your computer, don't forget to add an entry into /etc/fstab so it mounts each bootup!