RESCUEZILLA is operating system agnostic. Looks interesting.

Ghot · Aug 9, 2022

Rescuezilla: open source backup, restore and recovery environment - gHacks Tech News

Rescuezilla is a free open source disk imaging solution that supports data backups, restores and recovery actions.

www.ghacks.net

Rescuezilla is a free open source disk imaging solution that supports data backups, restores and recovery actions. The application is operating system agnostic, as it needs to be put on an optical disc or an USB drive; one of the benefits that comes out of that, is that may access the application at any time, even if the PC does not boot anymore.

This ONLY runs on CD or USB stick. I guess that's how it's... OS agnostic.

Badger · Aug 9, 2022

Thanks, does this come from the Clonezilla camp? Used to use Clonezilla for years and it never failed me! The only thing it lacked was a GUI interface. So I'm really interested in checking this out!

jimbo45 · Aug 9, 2022

Hi there

Any Linux Live distro will do the same - or more - and you can even install VM's etc on them. I actually never found clonezilla itself any good, although filezilla for file transfers via ftp is a good app. For cloning disks etc GPARTED will copy partitions etc and Macrium Free or the stanadrd Linux DD command will clone disks simply and quickly.

Filezilla also runs on windows too -- but to get the best use for flexible file transfers via ftp ensure the opnssh-server from Add optional features on Windows is installed and enabled.

Cheers
jimbo

Badger · Aug 9, 2022

Just checked it out. It definitely needs some work. On first default boot it FAILED: failed to start /etc/rc.local compatible. On second attempt I chose Graphical fallback mode instead and that worked. Did a full backup of my Win11.22000.856 NVME drive. Process took a total via it reporting back 4.1 minutes. While it was backing up I would randomly get a small window appearing in the upper right saying Battery Low. Interesting since I'm running on a desktop Ryzen machine. lol Anyway it took 4.1 minutes to complete. I ran the same backup on Aomei Backupper Pro (latest version) which took a total of 57.79 seconds. It's nice to finally see a graphical interface, but I'll pass until its had more time to mature. BTW, backup size of C drive was 33.1Gb and ran the program (v2.4) off of a USB stick.

Ghot · Aug 9, 2022

Badger said:
Just checked it out. It definitely needs some work. On first default boot it FAILED: failed to start /etc/rc.local compatible. On second attempt I chose Graphical fallback mode instead and that worked. Did a full backup of my Win11.22000.856 NVME drive. Process took a total via it reporting back 4.1 minutes. While it was backing up I would randomly get a small window appearing in the upper right saying Battery Low. Interesting since I'm running on a desktop Ryzen machine. lol Anyway it took 4.1 minutes to complete. I ran the same backup on Aomei Backupper Pro (latest version) which took a total of 57.79 seconds. It's nice to finally see a graphical interface, but I'll pass until its had more time to mature. BTW, backup size of C drive was 33.1Gb and ran the program (v2.4) off of a USB stick.

Not sure how you made the backup.

My testing

From my SSD (2.5") to WD Black HDD, my C:\ drive and EFI partition with Macrium paid (default compression).
Booting Rescuezilla off a cheap 16GB USB stick, same backup to WD Black HDD, (default compression).

Macrium Ref backup: 19.7GB [2:47]
Rescuezilla... backup: 17.7GB [3:13]

C:\ + EFI = 38.7GB

I would imagine if the Macrium and Rescuezilla compression was the same... the times would be the same.

Sandisk USB stick with only Rescuezilla. Made with balenaEtcher as per article in OP.

USB stick I used: Sandisk Cruzer Glide

Badger · Aug 9, 2022

Ghot said:
Not sure how you made the backup.

My testing

From my SSD (2.5") to WD Black HDD, my C:\ drive and EFI partition with Macrium paid (default compression).
Booting Rescuezilla off a cheap 16GB USB stick, same backup to WD Black HDD, (default compression).

Macrium Ref backup: 19.7GB [2:47]
Rescuezilla... backup: 17.7GB [3:13]

C:\ + EFI = 38.7GB

I would imagine if the Macrium and Rescuezilla compression was the same... the times would be the same.

Sandisk USB stick with only Rescuezilla. Made with balenaEtcher as per article in OP.

View attachment 36052

USB stick I used: Sandisk Cruzer Glide

I used its fastest backup mode. My C: drive comprises of 4 partitions created by Windows. Interesting, I will do my test again to see what it yields this time around.
Update: Just finished the test again and I found I didn't have the cursor all the way to the left for the very fastest in RescueZilla. With the scale all the way to the left (Fastest) it now took 3 minutes exactly to complete the same C: drive with the 4 partitions backup. On the other hand, booting Aomei Backupper v6.92 off of a USB stick took a total of 58.49 seconds. Note: the source drive is a PNY CS2140 500GB M.2 NVMe Gen4 x4, and the destination drive is a Western Digital 500GB M.2 NVME Gen3.
Here is the C: drives partition layout:

hsehestedt · Aug 10, 2022

Just out of curiosity, I understand that Rescuezilla is OS agnostic, but what about filesystem agnostic? Is it smart enough to understand the filesystem and thus backup only used blocks?

Programs such as Macrium Reflect, TrueImage, Veritas System Recovery, etc. are also all OS agnostic when run from their boot disks, but they do understand the common filesystems allowing them to create used block only backups. Of course, for unknown filesystems, they can do a "forensic" backup as well.

Badger · Aug 10, 2022

Yes, it will backup only used blocks. It works on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

hsehestedt · Aug 10, 2022

Badger said:
Yes, it will backup only used blocks. It works on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Thanks

Ghot · Aug 10, 2022

Rescuezilla, seems to be a "work in progress".
I wouldn't want to have to rely on this as my "only" backup solution... yet.

But it does look like it has promise.
Here is a link to their forums... Rescuezilla Forums

cereberus · Aug 10, 2022

To me, this is a solution to a problem I do not have (admittedly I only use Windows mostly, and any Linux work is in a vhd and easily backed up).

In the end, the most critical parameter for image backup tools is a proven track record.

Of course, there is the perrenial catch 22 i.e. how does a tool get a proven track record unless it is used frequently?

Looking at the forum, it is evident it is "work in progress" as @Ghot says, and I think it will take a lot to persuade users to make this their "go to" tool.

Badger · Aug 10, 2022

Contacted the programmer and he is looking into my two issues and says he's hoping to have a new build available by this weekend.

hsehestedt · Aug 10, 2022

Badger said:
Contacted the programmer and he is looking into my two issues and says he's hoping to have a new build available by this weekend.

"the programmer" - as in one of them?

I guess that is a double-edged sword. You may get great responsiveness since there is only one person to deal with, but on the downside - there is only one person

But in a lot of ways, that's often better than bureaucracies like Microsoft where you can bounce between 20 different people and still never get any answers.

cereberus · Aug 11, 2022

hsehestedt said:
"the programmer" - as in one of them?

I guess that is a double-edged sword. You may get great responsiveness since there is only one person to deal with, but on the downside - there is only one person

But in a lot of ways, that's often better than bureaucracies like Microsoft where you can bounce between 20 different people and still never get any answers.

Perhaps a better comparison is with the Macrium Reflect Team dedicated to developing and maintaining it. Reflect (paid version) has over 1 million users (they celebrated this milestone a few years back).

Their Team has a great track record of fixing (especially major) bugs promptly.

If the userbase of this tool was to grow substantially, then I doubt one person could cope with the support required.

Badger · Sep 5, 2022

Been following this release and my advise is to stay far away from it at least for another 6 months. The author has posponed the update going on the 3rd time already and still ran out of time to continue to work on it. Sorry, for backup software being such a critical thing, who wants to hear that the author ran out of time to work on it for the 3rd time in a row. No thanks, I'll pass!

cereberus · Sep 5, 2022

Badger said:
Been following this release and my advise is to stay far away from it at least for another 6 months. The author has posponed the update going on the 3rd time already and still ran out of time to continue to work on it. Sorry, for backup software being such a critical thing, who wants to hear that the author ran out of time to work on it for the 3rd time in a row. No thanks, I'll pass!

Totally agree with you.

As I said "If the userbase of this tool was to grow substantially, then I doubt one person could cope with the support required."
So with increase of user base by just 1 (@Badger), author cannot cope.

I rest my case!