Total noob here. I'm running 12.04 and want to back up my system before upgrading to the newest release. Is it possible (and advisable) to back up /home onto Dropbox? I've 1TB on Dropbox but Deja Dup keeps telling me I don't have enough space. Any advice/guidance would be appreciated... been looking around askubuntu but it looks like the old threads were about different things/by more advanced users. Thanks!
1 Answer
In my experience, network backups are good for people with lots of time. Anyone who has so little to backup that they can perform the backup time-effectively, can do so using a usb flashdrive such as the 128 I'm using my Ubuntu backup utility with, making incremental backups every couple of days. On average flash drives are faster than network backups. Network backups have other advantages flash drives lack, such as "everywhereness".
Also, depending on the age, size, and condition of your old drive, you might consider a procedure I long depended on when being a windows users. If say your hard drive is in a laptop and you have been thinking of upgrading to a more rugged solid state drive, this could be a great time to replace the drive itself. Then you can choose between making an all new fresh install on the new drive, or you can use an excellent program such as clonezilla to make an identical copy of your old drive onto your new drive before performing a traditional upgrade. Either way your data is still safe on the previous drive, and if you mount your old drive into an external usb drive case, you can boot to it anytime using any pc.
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ps: I'm still using 12.04. I'm not upgrading anytime soon. From what I've read on this site alone, 14.04 has unresolved issues, and I prefer the stability of 12.04– gyropygeDec 17, 2014 at 20:19
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Thanks so much for your detailed and clear answer! I might go with your clonezilla suggestion (as well as not upgrading to 14.04)– YKCDec 19, 2014 at 18:37
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In that case I trust you will eventually upvote my "answer" or even honor it with a "best" or whatever they call it. I'll understand of course if you want to wait to see what others suggest.– gyropygeDec 19, 2014 at 22:43