A Backup Calendar To Keep Your Computer In Good Running Order

Run These Backups On Schedule And Your Data Should Be Okay

A few weeks ago, I posted my Ubuntu backup strategy.

My (Ultimate!) Ubuntu Backup Strategy

Thanks to a retweet from Ubuntu’s Twitter account, that got a little bit more traction than I was anticipating.

In lieu of framing this, I’ll include a screenshot here

Including this rather entertaining mention on Linux Game Cast.

I included a rough sketch of the my backup calendar in that article. But because it’s such an important part of maintaining a good backup routine, I wanted to make sure that it had its own article too.

To recap:

• I take daily incremental backups using Timeshift
• I take full disk image backups using Clonezilla
• I manually store offsite backups in — yes, you read this right — a car. If your upload speed doesn’t suck, feel free to use the cloud instead
• There are hundreds of ways you can do backup and this is just one of them
• RPO = the maximum data loss possible given your backup approach. RTO = how long you stand to be down for if a data problem strikes.

My Current Backup Calendar

My current backup calendar is some variation of the below.

Again, there are many ways to skin a cat — just make sure to set calendar reminders for whatever it is that you do.

I currently:

• Run Timeshift every day and keep three snapshots. This happens automatically.
• Run the Clonezilla disk image backup every two weeks onto a dedicated hard drive. This is my backup backup.
• Every month, I copy the Clonezilla backup onto my NAS. This means that when I update the offsite copy of the NAS, a copy of my desktop backup will be included.

But you could also:

• Run Timeshift every day.
• Run Clonezilla once a month onto an external HDD. Then, sync that copy immediately up to cloud storage.

As a chart, it looks something like this:

The implementation?

All you need to do is set up a Google Calendar for your backups:

Next, set yourself appointments like this. I don’t note the backups that happen manually — like Timeshift — only those that I’m directly responsible for action-ing.

That’s really about it.

If you want a spreadsheet to help keep your backup routine in good running order, feel free to use this one:

Backup task sheet.xlsx

Try to run your backups as soon as they’re scheduled. But if you have something better to do — say you’re at the beach — then just run them at the soonest opportunity.