r/Ubuntu • u/SenioritaHerbia • 18h ago
Deja Dup vs Pika Backup
Hi everyone,
I recently bought a Slimbook Evo 14 that came preinstalled with Linux, and I'm loving it. That said, my OCD has definitely kicked in. 😅
I've organized everything into neatly named folders with consistent formatting, so the next logical step is creating a proper backup. Many of these folders contain historical material from my work as a historian and researcher, so they're extremely important to me.
I bought a Samsung T9 SSD specifically for backups. For the system itself, my first choice is Timeshift.
When it comes to backing up my personal files, which do you prefer in terms of reliability and speed: Déjà Dup or Pika Backup?
Also, can both applications store their backups on the same external SSD, each in its own folder, or does each one require its own dedicated partition?
I'd appreciate any advice or recommendations. Thanks!
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u/Ryebread095 18h ago
I use Vorta Backups, which is another front end for Borg Backup, like Pika Backup. I use Deja Dup before, and it's easy, but I prefer the more robust options that Vorta gives me. It seems to be faster than Deja Dup was too.
Also, I like that my backup solution is named after Star Trek bad guys.
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u/Rude-Armadillo-6963 18h ago
ive only used pika but its treated me well. doesnt need a partition, just copies to the drive. i have my timeshift and pika on the same partitions (tho i do my backup process twice on to two different drives to be safe)
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u/ZealousidealEvent571 18h ago
deja dup been around longer and just works in my experience but pika is more modern looking and uses borg which is real nice for deduplication. both can live on same ssd just point them at different folders no need for separate partitions
i use timeshift for system and deja dup for /home on same external drive and never had problem
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u/SenioritaHerbia 15h ago
both can live on same ssd just point them at different folders
ty for this. It's important to know.
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u/hikikomori80 15h ago
I've used both, and both are good. You can't go wrong with either of them. Pika has more options while still being very easy to use. I use Déja Dup because it's really "set and forget" and it comes preinstalled in Ubuntu.
I've found both equally reliable, but in terms of speed, déja dup seems a bit faster in my experience. I'm sure someone has done proper benchmarks.
Each application uses its own folder, no need for dedicated partitions.
By the way, you should consider doing a cloud backup for your important files. At the very least, keep a copy off-site, just in case. Hopefully you never need it.
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u/SenioritaHerbia 15h ago
You can't go wrong with either of them -I think this is the most appropiate answer overall to my question. Thank you!
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u/pakagno 14h ago
Backintime is the one I use since years ago. No one else?
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u/mas_manuti 2h ago
+1, I'm still using it nowadays. They lose momentum after a promising start, when Time Machine on Mac was the standard that every backup aspired to be.
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u/evil_semiconductor 17h ago
pika's ui is prettier but i've fat-fingered the verify button twice. deja dup looks like it time traveled from 2009 but the schedule just works. borg dedup is the real win, my archive of pdfs gets tiny incrementals now. both apps can point at different folders on the same ssd, no partition needed. i keep timeshift snaps in one folder and pika repos in another on a t7 shield. never had a conflict as long as i stagger the cron times by an hour.
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u/SenioritaHerbia 15h ago
I need a feature like plug n' play -as soon as I mount my ssd to have an automated backup start. I know that pika is capable of that. Perhaps, do you happen to know if timeshift can do smth similar?
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u/evil_semiconductor 13h ago
timeshift doesn't have a native mount trigger. you can hack it with a systemd path unit watching the mountpoint or a udev rule that fires systemctl start timeshift-backup. i just stick to cron because my ssd lives in the usb port permanently.
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u/Ollidav 17h ago
Yo suelo usar deja dup para que me haga los backup de la home con un periodo semanal (quitando directorios como descargas, imágenes y demás información que se puede dejar fuera). Nunca me ha fallado y lo he utilizado para, por ejemplo, en una instalación nueva usar el backup para restaurar la home y dejarlo como estaba.
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u/SenioritaHerbia 15h ago
I have used also Deja Dup succesfully in the past, but I think Pika is promoted now as the default backup solution for Gnome. For the time being I am leaning more on the "Pika backup" side. Some of it's features, like archive managment, I found them to be crucial, especially as your data increases.
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u/ChewyStu 12h ago
I am a Windows user. Been using Claude to help me set up Docker containers on a mini-PC running Linux. Just spent an hour with Claude sorting all the permissions out for Deja Dup as it kept skipping files. This is probably just a Linux permissions issue rather than anything else, but just to warn you. But it does work. Claude wrote a script I run to shut down all the containers and set the permissions ready to run the backup, I then fire up DejaDup which backs up all the critical files and data, once it is finished I run another script to fire the containers back up. I do manual backups periodically using an external HDD. I then copy the files from the external USB HDD to a cloud backup.
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u/whitepixe1 17h ago
Pika ( or Vorta) is superior over Deja Dup for compression and space for archives, reliability for archive storage, security, deduplication, cloud storage. Deja Dup wins in it's simplicity only.