NasBackup Makes Incremental Backups Easy
Windows only: NasBackup is an easy to use interface for the powerful rsync backup utility.
You can use NasBackup right out of the box and easily schedule backups from your machine to another machine on your network. Underneath the GUI is still all the power of rsync, if you’re familiar with rsync commands you can edit the main.phase file in the NasBackup directory to including any rsync tweaks you like. Even if you never get under the hood and mess around however, NasBackup is quite capable. Once you select the data you want backed up, the destination on the remote computer, and tell NasBackup how frequently to back the data up, from there out it works in the background incrementally backing up your data to the remote disk. If you’re interested in shopping around for a backup solution, make sure to check out our previous Hive Five on best backup tools. NasBackup is open source, Windows only. Thanks Mike!
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
@mados123: I also like
SyncBack, but their SE/Pro versioning is horrible. rsync is very powerful and can easily be made to handle versioning to whatever depth you like. Open file backup is easy, too, using VSS.
8abhive
If the target of the the backups allows hardlinks you can do real incremental backups with this rsync script:
[pastebin.ca]
Use cygwin of mingw to get this done in Windows.
rawfan
@TheFu: rsync DOES do real incrementals via hardlinks. But this only works on filesystems that support hardlinks. NTFS is out of the game there. Although MS added support for hardlinks to NTFS they provide no tools to use that feature.
Here is the RSYNC script that I use to accomplish real incremental backups:
[pastebin.ca]
rawfan
Can it back up locked files? If not, I would stick with SyncBack Freeware (which also cannot do locked files) as their software has a long history of reliability. I use the SE product and it is bulletproof.
mados123
Rsync isn't backup - it replicates mistakes too. It's tough to find out months later you accidentally corrupted a set of files. Check out CrashPlan. It uses less bandwidth than rsync, less resources, and it's free.
dornquast
I'm currently using Sync Back, to backup my NAS. I think I'll give this a try. I like the idea of having different backups of the same directory, if this is what it does…
I've tried cwRsyc for windows, I haven't got to work from Windows to Windows, but Windows to Linux works.
TomMelendrezJr
@Brad: It depends on your definition of true incrementals and what you are trying to accomplish. Cobian does incremental backups, but here is what they mean by it:
"Incremental - The program will check if the source has been changed from the last backup. If there is no need to copy the file, it will be skipped, saving backup time."
The entire file is copied though, not just the bits that changed. So, you could run full backups on Sunday and save incremental backups Monday through Saturday. Each backup can be saved in a timestamped folder and you can set it to save x number of folders. This lets you roll back to any day of the week.
I've always been fine with full backups for all of my computers and saving all of my stuff to one location and using sync commander to copy the newer version to the backup drive (Windows). Rsync works great for Unix based systems.
daybringer
@TheFu: Do you know of a free backup app that provides true incrementals?
I use Netbackup at work, but the licenses for that are insanely expensive.....far too much for the small business I provide support for on the side.
Brad
Crashplan FTW.
powaking
@morehpperliter: ZOMG, I put freeNAS on a computer I found on the side of the road, and for only ~$150.00 in HD's and ATA-PCI card, I have an 1.2 TB NAS box I can access worldwide. There's also the snazzy green paint job I gave it. But my boss loves it, and I do as well. Except for the fact the computer wouldn't start up off a USB drive, and I didn't have a floppy disk in my house, so I had to sacrifice a 20gig hard drive to be it's "brain", it works perfectly. I'm almost scared of all the features it boasts.
Nice, but looks like it hasn't been developed for a while, and doesn't have all of the features that the command line rsync allows you to use.
pioniere
Try this beta:
[www.genie-soft.com]
and let us know how it goes. It's free and supposed to work just like Mac's Time Machine.
Here's the sourceforge link, which is still working: [sourceforge.net]
TheFu
Ahh! I spent so many hours yesterday looking for EXACTLY this sort of backup solution, but didn't find it. I even remember thinking that as soon as I re-configured my current setup I would find something better. Oh well, maybe I'll give this a shot when I get home.
salviati
Site is 404, even the top level. Goes to show why you need a stupid static page for the top level unless your server/network can handle spikes.
rsync rocks, so this is definitely a good step, but IME rsync has "issues" with large files and drops back to a full copy once the diff buffers get over filled. It may not be as efficient for encrypted volume files, say from Truecrypt or Virtual Machine VMDK, VDI, or IMG files.
The other thing that isn't clear is that this don't support true "incremental backups." Yes, it transfers only change data for files, but what results is a mirror, not something you can ask for files from last Tuesday. rdiff-backup, also using rsync, adds that capability, however, it also suffers from the large file full copy problem, IME.
Don't get me wrong, if you aren't doing any backups, this is fantastic - grab it, install, use it. Weekly, nightly, but please use it.
TheFu
@SaraswatiBubulcus:
Nice thanks for the link!
Jared Digby
you can find the link for the software to download at http://sourceforge.net/projects/nasbackup
SaraswatiBubulcus
Hmmm that link seems to be broken or their site is down...
Jared Digby
This looks to be a killer add-on to Freenas.