Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET
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ZDNET key takeaways
Snapshots are a crucial part of keeping your system running.
You'll want to install the free Timeshift app on your distribution.
Make sure to save your snapshots to an external drive.
When you want to ensure you always have a running Linux system, snapshots are a necessity. Snapshots are a saved "moment in time" state of your system that is created (either manually or automatically) and can be used to roll back a system.
The difference between snapshots and backups
This is an important distinction you must know about. First off, a snapshot is a point-in-time copy of data that captures a system's current state, whereas a backup is a complete duplicate of specific data that is stored separately for recovery. As far as the purpose of each, a snapshot is for quick recovery, testing, and virtual environments, whereas a backup is for long-term data protection and disaster recovery.
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