Surely restic or borg would be better for backups?
Rsync can send files and not delete stuff, but there's no versioning or retention settings.
this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2025
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If you add --delete-before, it absolutely can delete stuff.
Yeah but then it's not really a good backup!
For versioning/retention, just use snapshots in whatever filesystem you're using (you are using a proper filesystem like ZFS or BTRFS, right?).
How does that get sent over rsync though? Wouldn't you need snapshots on the remote destination server?
Why not just use a backup utility instead?
Yes, async copies files to the remote server, the remote server takes regular snapshots.
Why not just use a backup utility instead?
What is that utility providing that snapshots + rsync doesn't. If rsync + snapshots is sufficient, why overcomplicate it with a backup utility?
The main things that come to mind are you have to test/monitor 2 seperate actions instead of 1, and restores of single files could be more difficult since you need to login to the backup server, restore the file from a snapshot, then also copy that file back to your PC.
Why videos? I feel like an old man yelling at clouds every time something that sounds interesting is presented in a fucking video. Videos are so damn awful. They take time, I need audio and I can't copy&paste. Why have they become the default for things that should've been a blog post?
Thank you for putting into words what ive subconsciously been thinking for years. Every search result prioritizes videos at the top and I'm still annoyed every time. Or even worst I have to hunt through a 10 minute video for the 30 seconds of info I needed. Stoohhhhpppp internet of new! Make it good again!
Ad money.
Blogs can have ads.
Hear hear. Knowledge should be communicated in an easily shareable way that can also be archived as easily, in contrast to a video requiring hundreds of MB:s.
Especially for a command line tool
But if you're working with Linux you're going to need to know it.
Nope. I never have needed to know it. I only ever used it because I was either curious to know how to use it or because it was more convenient than other solutions. But scp is basically just as convenient.
It doesn't do diffs, so it's really bad if there's a lot of duplicate data.
If you want to use it for backups, there are other solutions, so you still don't need to use it or know it. You can use something else. That's my only point. 🤷♂️
And "really bad" is all relative. If you are only backing up your home drive with documents or whatever, copying a few unnecessary gigabytes over a LAN connection isn't too bad at all. But scp isn't what you should be using for backups anyway. I only used rsync for file transfer...
I use rsync for all kinda of things:
- deploying static files to a public webserver (blog or whatever)
- backups - scheduled systems/cron task w/ SSH key
- copying stuff from a USB drive
I only really use scp if the system doesn't already have rsync.
It's not bad if you don't need historical backups. I kinda think I do, so I use https://github.com/rustic-rs/rustic becase rust
Restic is probably a better choice if you're not a rust-freak like me.
Rustic scares me. I will 100% forget what tool I used to backup after 5 years and be unable to recover my files.
I use rsync + ZFS for backups which includes historical backups
Yup, just configure a snapshot policy and you can recover deleted and modified files going back as long as you choose. And it is probably more space efficient than both/restic too.
I never thought of it as slow. More like very reliable. I dont need my data to move fast, I need it to be copied with 100% reliability.
And not waste time copying duplicate data. And for the typical home user, it's probably mo slower than other options.
I tried to use it via tailscale but it disconnects very easily - is to be expected?
I would not expect rsync to have frequent disconnects, no.
If I connect to the same server via my own VPN I don't have the disconnections, so I'm thinking it's tailscale cutting connections after too much traffic. But connecting via tailscale is so much more convenient 😢
I'll never not upvote Veronica Explains. Excellent creator and excellent info on everything I've seen.
Rsnapshot. It uses rsync, but provides snapshot management and multiple backup versioning.
Yes, but a few hours writing my own scripts will save me from several minutes of reading its documentation...
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I still prefer tar for quick and dirty same box copies.
tar cf - * | (cd /target; tar xfp -)
Why not just cp?
Veeam for image/block based backups of Windows, Linux and VMs.
syncthing for syncing smaller files across devices.
Thank you very much.
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