Welcome to the forum, @troutseeker! Yes Clonezilla stands out as a foolproof tool. It allows you to clone your entire disk or specific partitions and restore them to a new machine efficiently.
It’s especially useful if you’re moving to hardware with similar or compatible configurations. Remember to check the new machine’s hardware compatibility and adjust any necessary configurations post-restore.
Below is a combined list of every tool or method mentioned in this thread.
Linux Backup & Restore Tools
Clonezilla — One of the most recommended tools for disk cloning and full system backups. Excellent when moving to similar hardware. UI can be clunky, but it’s reliable. Supports image creation and restoration from ISO.
Rescuezilla — A GUI frontend for Clonezilla that simplifies the process. Supports cloning and restoring full drives with multiple partitions. Useful when dealing with mixed OS environments.
TimeShift — Great for system snapshots and rollbacks. Not a full backup tool, but works well to restore to previous states. Watch out for UUID mismatches on new machines.
Deja Dup — User-friendly GUI backup utility that supports incremental backups, encryption, and cloud storage. Ideal for personal files and scheduled backups.
rsync — Command-line powerhouse for incremental file-level backups. Can be scripted for automation and paired with cron jobs.
dd — Performs raw disk cloning. Bit-for-bit backups. High risk if misused, but powerful when handled carefully.
FSArchiver — Backup tool that allows restoring to partitions of different sizes. Stores data in compressed archives. Works well for full file system backups.
G4L (Ghost for Linux) — Imaging tool with support for multiple file systems and network backups. Good alternative to Clonezilla.
UrBackup — Client-server backup tool for Linux and Windows. Supports image and file backups, good for networked environments.
Rclone — Cloud sync tool that can mount or mirror cloud storage providers like Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive. Combine with rsync for persistent backups.
google-drive-ocamlfuse — FUSE-based Google Drive mount for Linux. Useful for those using GNOME or Thunar with mounted cloud storage.
Back In Time — Simple backup tool with rsync backend. Supports snapshot-style backups and scheduling.
BorgBackup — Efficient deduplicating and compressing backup tool. Especially strong for incremental backups.
Vorta — GUI frontend for Borg, making setup and scheduling easier.
Incus — Successor to LXD. Allows backup/export of full container or VM setups. Great for reproducible environments.
Tips:
- Use
blkidto get the new UUID and update/etc/fstabafter restoring with TimeShift or other file-based tools. - Store backups off-site or encrypted to avoid data loss or theft.
- For VM backups, direct file copies (e.g.,
.qcow2,.vdi) can be efficient if done periodically.