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dattobd
kernel module for taking block-level snapshots and incremental backups of Linux block devices
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It's a shame that Linux doesn't have APIs as comprehensive as Windows VSS. One of the several features is something called Volume Shadow Copy which lets you take backups of block devices which are in use, similar to this but more supported.
[Also if you are playing with block devices in Linux -- mounted or otherwise but not /dev/sda -- https://gitlab.com/nbdkit/nbdkit]
The dattobd [1] block device driver fills this gap. It basically implements VSS like behavior on Linux. It is used in the Datto Linux backup agent in combination with the backup appliance [2], but it can be used stand alone as well (see readme).
Disclaimer: I'm a software engineer for Datto.
[1] https://github.com/datto/dattobd