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Choosing a storage snapshot tool

Conclusions

The software solutions presented in this article are designed to create images and clones of data carriers – all of these tasks are performed reliably and without errors. (See Table 1 for a side-by-side comparison of the tools described in this article.) Differences arise in the application scenarios.

Table 1

Cloning Software

	Clonezilla	CYA	Partimage	qt-fsarchiver	Snapper
License	GNU GPL	BSD	GNU GPL	GNU GPL	GNU GPL
Supported filesystems	ext2/3/4, XFS, JFS, Btrfs, HFS+, FAT16/32, NTFS, UFS	ext2/3/4, XFS, UFS, ZFS, Btrfs	ext2/3, XFS, ReiserFS, JFS, UFS, HPFS, NTFS, FAT16/32	ext2/3/4, XFS, JFS, FAT16/32, NTFS, Btrfs	Btrfs
Profiles	No	Yes	No	No	Yes
Archiving	No	Yes	No	No	Yes
Live system	Yes	No	Yes (SystemRescueCD)	Yes	No
Scheduled	No	Yes	No	No	Yes
Intranet connection	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No
Image comparison	No	No	No	No	Yes

If you only want to create images under openSUSE – or another system with the Btrfs filesystem – it is best to use Snapper as a fast solution. For servers that lack a GUI, Partimage and CYA are better suited. However, due to the lack of filesystem support for ext4 and Btrfs, Partimage is only of limited use in Linux-only environments.

Qt-fsarchiver is the best fit for systems with a GUI. Thanks to the optionally available Live DVD, it can also act as a first-class alternative to the visually antiquated Clonezilla in heterogeneous IT infrastructures. Due to the intuitive user interface, qt-fsarchiver hardly requires any training. Thus, nothing stands in the way of an enterprise backup strategy that also includes images and cloned data media.

Infos