I initiated the linux backup process in the Developers tab under 'Backup & restore'. I chose my Google Drive as the destination.

Everything has slowed down immensely while the .tini file is being created and uploaded. The time estimate for completion is well over a day.

I'd like to halt the process, but there doesn't seem to be a means. When I open the 'Files' manager, it indicates that the sync is in progress and the time estimate, but doesn't have the usual option to stop/cancel.

I've tried identifying an active process with htop to try and sigkill, but can't find it (if that's even where I would find it).

Neither re-booting nor hard-resetting have any effect on the backup process. Presumably I could remove and re-enable the linux environment, but then I would lose a lot of work in progress, and backing said work up through other means has been made unbearably slow by the backup in progress.

I'm sure I've made many rookie mistakes here. Can anyone help?

Thanks in advance.

The missing piece here seems to be precisely what backup program is being used.

I assume your desktop environment has a menu editor of some sort. Perhaps if you open it, you might be able to find the name of the backup routine.

ChromeOS frankbell - I'm guessing people who use it will know what is being referenced. Looks like it produces a tar.
Only google would make something like that that persists across boots, and can't be easily killed. No, I take that back - they probably borrowed the idea from apple.

Was this in the Google Drive ? Where is the “backup & restore” / “developers tab”?

Yeah, I noticed it was ChromeOS. Never used it, never would.

My thought was that, if OP can find the name of the actual backup program, maybe OP can kill it from the command line. Then again, it's Google.

Thanks for your time all.

Apologies for not specifying ChromeOS, I thought I had posted in the correct sub thread. ChromeOS' debian based VM 'Crostini' has a built in back-up process for just the VM which as a poster above said persists across boots and I couldn't figure out how to kill.

For any future readers - removing the Linux environment did not help (the backup process seems to be on the ChromeOS side, which perhaps explains why I couldn't identify the process from by examining them in Crostini's htop), so I ultimately backed up what I could stand to wait for in both the VM and the general ChromeOS downloads folder, and power washed the device. Won't be touching that built in back up process again.

Thanks again for the replies.