In contrast to the zip program, the borg backup tool is working with an incremental algorithm. The advantage is, that a backup is created within seconds but not within hours. On the command line only two actiions are needed:
- init (without password): borg init -e none borg-backup/
- backup:
borg create --compression lz4 borg-backup::2020-01-25 /home
What the user has to do, is to change the date in the second command before he creates a new backup. The date is used for identify the snapshot. The main feature of the borg software is, that if the user doesn't change the home folder or he simply adds a new file, the backup is created within second. This is important because in most cases the backup is stored not on a local harddrive but on external media which are plugged in with USB or connected over the LAN connection. Creating a backup with the normal zip tool will result into a high load of the CPU and the LAN connection as well. With the borg software this is no longer the case and it's possible to create a snapshot very frequently.
The interesting fact is, that the borg software is nearly unknown in the computer mainstream. Apple users are proud of the time machine software which is doing the same, and Windows users have to install proprietary software from a certain company which is not available within the next 2 years anymore. It's not hard to predict that the borg software will replace all these backup tools similar to what git has done for version control systems. Another command make sense in the context of borg:
borg list borg-backup/
will show all the snapshots stored in the directory. It is doing the same like “git logâ€. It provides an overview to the user.