I have added one previous response to this subject below that from Stack.

The multiple back-up, remote site, and redundant fail-over described 
below is of course very desirable and totally infeasible for the 
end-user situation.  As for backing up to the cloud, the user has a USA 
DSL connection to the web, with an internal (inside the house) an IEEE 
802.11 network for which the combination DSL access "router" is under 
the configuration control of the ISP (in this region for DSL over a USA 
voice telephone provider copper twisted pair connection for the "last 
mile" from Frontier Communications as the provider -- for those outside 
the USA, the communications networks are, as with the USA for-profit 
health care system, both much more expensive and much less capable than 
what many of those on this list are familiar.  Thus, remote backup is 
not a viable alternative (particularly given Internet service 
interruptions and degradations from the provider, allowed by the USA 
for-profit "regulations", even when the lower layer DSL is "active").

The end user in question uses "cook book" vocational training IT type 
books to use the office suite applications she wants (e.g., MS Office XP 
now being forced to upgrade to MS Office 2007, currently running under 
CrossOver -- commercially supported Wine), does not want to learn 
LibreOffice and until LibreOffice is fully compatible with all MS Office 
formats, cannot use these for her professional applications (for which 
MS Office formats are the "standard" along with PDF -- LaTeX is not 
used).  If I am to "support" her needs, I insist that her machines are 
"unix" -- today, Linux.

She wants an incremental backup system that uses a removable external 
drive, and that she can initiate (not time interval daemon driven), and 
that allows her to "find" a deleted file that she needs -- but for which 
she looks both by the file name, but also by scanning content when 
necessary (including viewing an image file such as JPEG or a video file 
such as MP4).

As for "attitude changes", I expect none.  In large measure this is 
because "computer 'education'" typically is vocational "secretarial" 
studies to use a few end user IT applications, and with no explanation 
or understanding of how a modern classical computer "works" (classical, 
not quantum, neurosynaptic, etc.).  In the USA, a major issue is the 
lack of education in mathematics -- USA "high school algebra" already is 
being phased out for a general 4 year university degree at many USA 
accredited "colleges and universities".  Without mathematics, very 
little understanding of computers is possible (both for the software and 
the hardware).

Déjà Dup may be a viable solution -- I will look at that.

On 8/9/21 7:17 AM, ~Stack~ wrote:
> On 8/9/21 1:47 AM, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
>> "rsnapshot". Old, stable, and extremely effective at configuring backs
>> of both system files and user data.
> 
> I second rsnapshot. Been using it for years and it is easy to set up 
> Yearly/Monthly/Daily/Hourly backups and how many of each you want to 
> keep. Since it uses symlinks, only the data changed takes up space.
> 
> Since I'm backing up a LOT of systems, I've got a dedicated server. But 
> I've used it before on just a single laptop with an external drive.
> 
> The two cautions I'll give are:
> * Have an off-site backup too. I have two external drives that I rotate 
> weekly to a secure location (it can be your house) that just has the 
> most current backup. The way I do it, if I lose /everything/ else then 
> worst case scenario I still have my data as of two weeks ago. I have 
> lived through a catastrophic failure and I did so with very little data 
> loss.
> 
> * Backups can be very challenging. The more options you want and the 
> more devices and the more OS's and the more things you want to tweak 
> just make backup that much more complex. Pretty soon you find the only 
> thing that matches your requirements are enterprise solutions like 
> Bacula. Rsnapshot is simple and has several things you can tweak, but 
> don't expect a lot of bells and whistles other then the basics. I've 
> found that's true of most of the simple backup interfaces.
> 
> Good luck!
> ~Stack~
> 

Benson Muite <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

     Déjà Dup is a good choice for that.  However, attitude changes may 
also be required. Assuming that some of the information is confidential 
time investment on the part of the user in understanding and being able 
to configure the system may be useful in the long run. If you manage to 
create an attitude change, please let us know how so we can replicate 
the process:)