[NTLUG:Discuss] Leopard's Time Machine: backup/restore - Does Linux have something similar?

[Stuart Johnston]

Stan Gatchel wrote:
> My brother recently purchased a new MacPro quad-core (two Dual-Core 
> Intel Xeons) with Leopard! He was showing me Time Machine over the 
> Thanksgiving weekend and it seems really nice.
> 
> http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/14
> 
> He has 2 drives: the 350 GB is the main drive and the 500GB is the the 
> drive used by Time Machine. Backups are automated hourly, daily, monthly 
> to this second drive. Recovery is a snap via a really slick GUI frontend.
> 
> I was just wondering what we have in the Linux world that comes closest.

The basic functionality is very similar to using rsync with hard links 
to create snapshot backups[1], which has been around for years.  The 
thing that makes Apple's Time Machine special is the GUI and the 
integration with the rest of the OS.  There is at least one project[2] 
trying to replicate it in Linux.

1. http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/
2. http://code.google.com/p/flyback/