Backups are boring until the day they save you. A failed update, a dead SSD, one wrong rm -rf — any of them can turn years of files into a bad week. The fix isn't complicated: pick a tool, automate it, and test restores occasionally.

Here are five backup utilities for Linux that actually get used in the real world, from simplest to most complete. For the bigger picture (how many copies, where to keep them), read our 3-2-1 backup strategy guide.

1. rsync — the workhorse

rsync copies files efficiently, transferring only what changed. It's on virtually every Linux system already, which makes it the default answer for "copy my stuff to another disk/server."

rsync -avh --progress /home/user/ /mnt/backup/home/ rsync -avz -e ssh /var/www/ user@backup-server:/backups/www/
  • -a archive mode (preserves permissions, timestamps, links)
  • -z compression over the network
  • Add --delete to mirror exactly — careful, it also deletes files at the destination

2. tar — simple archives

tar bundles a directory into a single compressed file. Not fancy, but perfect for a quick pre-upgrade snapshot:

tar -czvf etc-backup-$(date +%F).tar.gz /etc tar -xzvf etc-backup-2026-11-02.tar.gz -C /restore-location

Pair it with cron for a scheduled archive, but know its limits: no deduplication, no incremental history. It's a snapshot, not a backup system.

3. BorgBackup — deduplicated, encrypted archives

Borg is where real backups start. It deduplicates data (so daily backups barely grow), encrypts everything, and keeps multiple restore points:

borg init --encryption=repokey /mnt/backup/borg-repo borg create /mnt/backup/borg-repo::daily-{now} /home /etc borg list /mnt/backup/borg-repo borg extract /mnt/backup/borg-repo::daily-2026-11-02

The catch: you must keep the encryption key/passphrase somewhere safe. Lose it and the backups are mathematically unrecoverable.

4. restic — modern, cloud-friendly

Restic covers similar ground to Borg but speaks S3, Backblaze, SFTP, and more out of the box, which makes offsite copies painless:

export RESTIC_PASSWORD='your-strong-password' restic -r s3:s3.amazonaws.com/my-backup-bucket init restic -r s3:s3.amazonaws.com/my-backup-bucket backup /home restic -r s3:s3.amazonaws.com/my-backup-bucket snapshots

Encrypted, deduplicated, scriptable — a solid default for servers.

5. Timeshift — system snapshots for desktops

Timeshift is less about your documents and more about the OS itself: it takes rsync-based snapshots of system files so you can roll back a broken update or driver change in minutes. On Ubuntu and Mint it integrates with the package manager, taking a snapshot before big upgrades.

Don't use it as your only backup — it protects the system, not your data, and it lives on the same disk by default.

The part everyone skips: testing the restore

A backup you have never restored from is a hope, not a backup. Once a month, pick a random file and actually restore it to a temporary directory. If the restore fails, you just learned something valuable while the stakes were still zero.

Automate whichever tool you choose with cron or a systemd timer, keep one copy off the machine, and you're ahead of most people already.