I stopped worrying about breaking linux workstations and not-virtualized servers after discovering "Relax and Recover" (ReaR) which allows "Acronis-like" ISO rescue to previous "snapshots". I think it's nice to at least know you can. I wrote a guide to backup using sshfs with ReaR, here[1]

[1] https://devblog.juangacovas.info/relax-and-recover-bare-meta...