On 21/12/2020 20:45, Claudius Ellsel wrote: > I had a closer look at snapper now and have installed and set it up. This > seems to be really the easiest way for me, I guess. My main confusion was > probably that I was unsure whether I had to create a subvolume prior to this > or not, which got sorted out now. The situation is apparently still not > ideal, as to my current understanding it would have been preferable to set up > a subvolume first at root level directly after creating the files system. > However, as this is only the data drive in the machine (OS runs on an ext4 > SSD) it is at least not planned to simply swap the entire volume to a > snapshot but rather to restore snapshots at file / folder level, where > snapper can also be used for. > > One can possibly also safely achieve the same with only using btrfs > commandline tools (I made the mistake of not thinking about read only > snapshots when I wrote about my fear to delete / modify mounted snapshots). > Still I have a better feeling when using snapper, as I hope it is less easy > to screw things up with it :)
I have never used snapper but I know it is a popular tool. But there are many other tools - with their own advantages, disadvantages and ways of working. You may want to experiment with several of them. Personally I use btrbk for automation of snapshots. Just remember that btrfs snapshots are not a backup tool. At best, they are a convenience tool, for quickly restoring deleted or modified files (or full subvolumes) to an earlier (snapshotted) state without having to access your backups. But they are completely useless if a hardware or software problem (kernel bug, disk problem, system memory error, faulty cable, etc) corrupts the filesystem. You don't have a backup solution unless you are copying the files to another physical disk, preferably on a different system. btrbk can help with that as well (but it is just automating btrfs send and btrfs receive underneath).
