[http://rsnapshot.org/ '''''rnapshot'''''] is an excellent backup application and has been around for a long time and is extremely stable.  Why are backups important? Well, hardware failures, accidental file deletion(s), files become corrupted, etc.. Backups can help recover data where applications are being updated/upgraded. Enough reasons?  Where should backups be stored? Due to the inevitable failure of hardware it is desirable to store backups on a separate system from where the production data is stored. Or possibly to an external medium such as an external USB disk drive. This article discusses doing backups backing up to an external USB drive that is formatted for the "ext3" filesystem type.