I’ve got a whole bucket full of old hard drives, CDs and DVDs, and I’m starting the process of backing up as much as still works to a 4TB drive.

It’s gonna be a long journey and lots of files, many prone to being duplicates from some of the drives.

What sorts of software do you Linux users recommend?

I’m on Linux Mint MATE, if that matters much.

Edit: One of the programs I’m accustomed to from my Windows days is FolderMatch, which is a step above simple duplicate file scanning, it scans for duplicate or semi-duplicate folders as well and breaks down individual file differences when comparing two folders.

I see I’ve already gotten some responses, and I thank everyone in advance. I’m on a road trip right now, I’ll be checking you folks recommend software later this evening or as soon as I can anyways.

  • Dessalines
    6•9 days ago

    Nightly rsync job in crontab works well enough, if its an external hard drive.

    If you’re going over a network, syncthing.

          • Dessalines
            1•9 days ago

            I have no idea what your setup is so you’ll need to do your own research on rsync.

            • @[email protected]OP
              1•9 days ago

              That’s just it, there is no setup, except Linux Mint as the main system. It’s literally a physical bucket of discs and drives in all sorts of various formats…

    • Nine
      3•9 days ago

      I’ve abused syncthing in some many ways migrating servers and giant data sets. It’s freaking amazing. Though it’s been a few years since I’ve used it. Can only guess how much better it’s gotten.