Never used backups in the traditional sense, never will. My OS is agnostic to any data that matters, and data that does is 3-2-1'd. But for scrub setups where everything is tied together, backing things up like this isn't a bad idea.
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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Good for you! How is this relevant except to brag about your setup?
Listen, if you use a PC at all. Make backups. It doesn't matter the OS. Make backups.
There is a program called "Veeam," it's the most black magic bullshit level program for making backups I have seen. Get the free personal version of the program. Back up everything. It's so easy to use that really there's no excuse.
They most amazing part is, you make backup of you existing machine, you can use that to install on a new one super easily. Veeam wipes /preps the drivers so you can install the OS onto a new PC. I dabble in IT on the side and I no longer do windows installs. I have a veeam backup of a premade, base PC that I then use on new builds. It loads the OS with all the programs people usually want/need already ready to go. No fuss. I keep the base PC updated but not used or personalized. Periodically remake the backup so new installs don't have to be updated.
The most insane shit though, is the speeds. If you are installing an OS from a SSD to an SSD, you can load and have a 2tb backup on a working computer in... 15 minutes. 15 fucking minutes. Granted that's in part of SSD speeds but even then. To have a fully functional and operating OS, with programs and settings ready to go, installed from bare metal in 15 minutes, is crazy.
This looks really interesting as my local backup option to my NAS! Do you have experience using it that way? I don't think I'll remember to plug in my spare SSD every week, so I will need to set my NAS for it to back up to.
It's literally designed to work that way with a NAS or other external server but you can use it with any drive you want as well.
You set a "job" and how often to run it. You set what kind of backup, full system, specific drives, os drive/partition, etc.. Then you pick the location and frequency. All of it. Then just save the job and it will run it automatically. It will make one main backup, then incremental backups where it just saves what has changed. So you have multiple save points if something happens.
Btrfs snapshots have saved me from bad updates and dumb config changes.
But backups are essential for responsible computer usage.
Backup was never optional though. I used to keep clones of Windows because a Windows was hard to set up and running.
But with Linux, I only have to think about my configuration files. Now, even if I nuke my OS, I can still restore it to be close to the original state.
As for documents and other non-OS data, each have their own places.
Lol, backups are necessary regardless of your OS unless you don't value any of your data at all, which tbh, anyone who says that is lying and/or stupid.
I used to use Timeshift, but have even had that screwup an install once on which I had to perform a complete reinstall. Now I just rsync almost everything once a month, including /usr and other root directories.
Ideal backup solution for home use is a cron job set to rsync backups to an external RAID NAS both on premises and off premises, as well as an external hard drive you can stash in a backpack should your place catch on fire. Rule of 3s.
As an aside, I gave up on Flatpak. It's a good idea, but has just as many issues as your various package managers if not worse as it can cause conflicting library redundancies in my experience.
Thanks for the reminder to test if I can actually restore from backups.