BackupPC is a
free
Free may refer to:
Concept
* Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything
* Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism
* Emancipate, to procur ...
disk-to-disk
backup software
Backup software are computer programs used to perform a backup; they create supplementary exact copies of files, databases or entire computers. These programs may later use the supplementary copies to restore the original contents in the event of ...
suite with a web-based frontend. The cross-platform server will run on any
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...
,
Solaris, or
UNIX
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...
-based server. No client is necessary, as the server is itself a client for several protocols that are handled by other services native to the client OS. In 2007, BackupPC was mentioned as one of the three most well known open-source backup software, even though it is one of the tools that are "so amazing, but unfortunately, if no one ever talks about them, many folks never hear of them".
Data deduplication
In computing, data deduplication is a technique for eliminating duplicate copies of repeating data. Successful implementation of the technique can improve storage utilization, which may in turn lower capital expenditure by reducing the overall amou ...
reduces the disk space needed to store the backups in the disk pool. It is possible to use it as
D2D2T
Disk staging is using disks as an additional, temporary stage of backup process before finally storing backup to tape. Backups stay on disk typically for a day or a week, before being copied to tape in a background process and deleted afterwards. ...
solution, if the archive function of BackupPC is used to back up the disk pool to tape. BackupPC is not a block-level backup system like Ghost4Linux but performs file-based backup and restore. Thus it is not suitable for backup of disk images or raw disk partitions.
BackupPC incorporates a
Server Message Block
Server Message Block (SMB) is a communication protocol originally developed in 1983 by Barry A. Feigenbaum at IBM and intended to provide shared access to files and printers across nodes on a network of systems running IBM's OS/2. It also provide ...
(SMB) client that can be used to back up network shares of computers running