Linux based Backup/Cloning Applications
Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 11:40AM 
Having already covered cloning and backup solutions for OSX and Windows, here are some Linux based solutions I use from time to time.
My favorite Open Source solution is by far Clonezilla. Clonezilla allows you to do bare metal backups/Images and restoration of partitions/volumes or whole drive duplication. It comes in 2 flavors, Clonezilla Live, and Clonezilla SE (server edition) for massive deployment supporting multicast. It supports ext2, ext3, ext4, reiserfs, xfs, jfs of GNU/Linux, FAT, NTFS of MS Windows, and HFS+ for the Mac OS. Providing maximum flexibilty for cloning GNU/Linux, MS windows and Intel-based Mac OS.
Another Commonly used Enterprise-wide solution is the Open Source application called FOG. This one is heavily used in corporate and enterprise environments. Like Clonezilla, Fog also supports Multicast & Unicasting. Fog is much deeper, and has more options than Clonezilla, so it is very versatile and configurable for business. It supports native cloning of Windows 2000, XP, 2003, and Vista, and others
via sector by sector cloning.
This last one, I've mentioned before on my site. It is called Back In Time. This application is more of a scheduled file synchronizer, which takes snapshots of a specified set of directories, similar to Time Machine in OSX. This will not do System or partition cloning, but if you have a linux machine laying around, and some free storage space, this may help you with simple localized file/directory based backups.
To find out more about these apps, and where to get them, follow the links below:
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