BorgBackup: Deduplicated, Encrypted Backups That Don’t Waste Time (or Space)
There’s a certain type of backup admin who doesn’t care about GUIs, doesn’t want some cloud agent phoning home, and really just wants to back up files efficiently, securely, and locally. That’s who BorgBackup was built for.
It’s fast. It’s battle-tested. It’s deduplicating, compressing, and encrypting every backup you throw at it — with a CLI that makes scripting and automation feel like second nature.
If you’ve ever used rsync and thought “I wish this had versioning, encryption, and didn’t copy the same file twice,” BorgBackup is what you were looking for all along.
How It Works (Roughly)
Borg reads files, splits them into chunks, hashes those chunks, and stores only what’s new. Everything gets compressed and (optionally) encrypted — before it hits disk or the wire.
Each backup is a snapshot. But you can mount them. Browse them. Diff them. Restore individual files. It’s like having a versioned filesystem in a single backup repo — without actually needing ZFS or Btrfs.
And it all happens from the command line. Quietly.
Real-World Use: Simple, Scriptable, Reliable
Backing up /etc, /home, and some app configs:
borg init –encryption=repokey /mnt/backup/borg
borg create /mnt/backup/borg::$(date +%F) /etc /home /var/lib/app
Want to list archives?
borg list /mnt/backup/borg
Mount for browsing?
borg mount /mnt/backup/borg::2025-07-20 /mnt/borgview
It’s fast. It’s quiet. It just works.
Why People Like It
| Feature | Details |
| Deduplication | Chunk-based, content-aware — saves tons of space |
| Compression | lz4, zlib, zstd — configurable per repo |
| Encryption | AES-CTR with HMAC — secure by default |
| Snapshot-style backups | Time-based archives you can browse or restore from |
| CLI-first design | Great for cron, scripts, and headless setups |
| Mountable archives | Fuse support lets you mount backups like a directory |
| Remote backups | Works over SSH without any agents |
| Pruning policies | Keep last N, daily/weekly/monthly, etc. — built-in logic |
Installation (Ubuntu Example)
sudo apt update
sudo apt install borgbackup
Initialize a repo, set up cron, and you’re off. No background service, no cloud login, no weird formats.
Some Caveats
– Doesn’t do bare-metal or image-based backups — file-level only
– One repo can’t hold multiple users’ data easily (per-user repo is the norm)
– Initial setup may feel cryptic (especially key handling)
– GUI? Not really — it’s CLI all the way (though Vorta exists as a frontend)
If backups need to be secure, efficient, and under full control, BorgBackup is a tool worth sticking with — especially for admins who prefer transparency over automation magic.
