What backup service do you use?
I just got my home server up and running and was wondering what you guys recommend for backups. I figure it will probably be worth having backups on cloud servers tjay are external, are there any good services yall use for that?
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Borgbase with Borgmatic (Borg) as the Software. As far as I know the whole Borgbase Service is from a Homelab guy (with our needs in mind).
Also 3-2-1 rule!
Regardless of service, if you don't test your backups, you have none.
Schrodinger's backups.
Not so much about testing, but one time I really needed to get to my backups I lost password to the repository (I'm using restic). Luckily a copy of it was stored in bitwarden, but until I remembered it, were perhaps one of the worst moments.
Needless to say, please test backups and store secrets in more then one place.
I have an unraid server which hosts an docker image of Duplicacy. It is paid though for the web interface. And it backs up to Backblaze B2. I have roughly 175GB backed up, for which I pay $0.87 a month.
This is almost my exact backup workflow, with another location in between. Duplicacy is great, highly recommend.
Paid for the web interface as well. I really like that it's super simple and just does it's job. That would be the one I'd also recommend.
Do you have other clients backing up to your unraid? I’m looking for a complete solution to backing up end user workstations (windows, Mac and Linux) to my unraid server then backing up my unraid server to something like wasabi, Amazon, backblaze, etc. Preferably a single solution.
Yes, I have another server automatically rsyncing important config files to a nfs share. And my pc has a samba share where I manually backup files to.
Look into Veeam. The free version should be enough for this workflow.
rsync.net is great if you need something simple and cheap. Backblaze B2 is also decent, but does have the typical download and API usage cost.
I had never heard of rsync.net until now. I like the idea but it seems more expensive than B2. $15/TB vs $5/TB. Am I doing the math wrong or reading it wrong?
I've never heard of it either, but I came to the same conclusion as you
Yeah rsync.net has always been pricey.
I don't see it on their website right now, but they offer a discount if you're using something like restic/borg and only need scp/sftp access. Their support is also super friendly. I've had an account forever and got moved to the 100+ TB pricing even though I have < 50TB stored. YMMV but it doesn't hurt to ask if they have any additional discounts.
Also keep in mind that B2 charges for bandwidth too. It's $5/TB for storage, but $10/TB to download that same data.
Sure but backup is mostly data in (free on B2). Data out is rare, if ever.
If i wasn’t backing up 12TB+ I would actually go with rsync for the features though.
Borgbase looks interesting, too.
When I researched what to use for my backup I found rsync.net. They have some nice features nobody else seems to support, like they support ZFS send/receive https://www.rsync.net/products/zfsintro.html
But in the end the price made me go with borgbase.com
How are you using rsync with B2? Are you mounting the bucket locally?
I use Restic + Resticprofile to back up everything and store it on my local HDD.
Then, I use Rclone to sync the local repository to Backblaze B2.
Here's my general setup:
Resticprofile doesn't let me run other shell commands on a schedule, and because I wanted everything in a single configuration, I just created two new profiles which call the backup command. I then made the shell commands run before Restic, and then finally killed the instance before it got to actually run, which effectively does what I needed.
It's the first time I hear about resticprofile and it looks nice. So far I've been using crestic for configuration files. Do you know how they compare?
It seems like they have the same objectives - allow for easier configuration of Restic. I've never heard of Crestic until now. I'd say stick with what you're comfortable with
Backblaze b2, borgbase.com. There are also programs like dejadup that will let you backup to popular cloud drives. The alternatives are limitless.
I use restic to backup my raspberry Pi's to my Synology NAS and backup my NAS to backblaze.
Restic or Kopia, both to Backblaze.
I second restic. Have been using it for a year now and have been generally very happy. Actually had to use it in a couple occasions to restore directory content and even recover a complete workstation drive. I have had relatively easy success in both scenarios.
I've always found them pretty similar. How'd you chose one or another?
I know Restic before Kopia and made a set of systemd units to run Restic backups on my home server and office workstation (both online 24/7).
Kopia seems much nicer for a regular user, so I use it on my and family laptops. I used to use Duplicati there, but that project seems dead.
Thank you :)
+1 for backblaze. I use docker for everything and mounted volumes directly in the folder alongside a docker compose file. So I just tar my services directory with everything in it, and pipe it to rclone which connects to backblaze and has a "cat" feature so you can pipe data directly to the destination.
Restic and then rclone to backblaze? Or is there a way to restic directly to backblaze?
I do prefer having a local copy of my backups (and therefore i use rclone), but afaik restic does support b2 directly...
Backblaze.
rsync.net and learn to use Borg; they're stupid cheap if you're technically proficient enough to handle the Borg setup yourself. Like, charge by the gigabyte, but it's 1.5¢/GB at the most expensive, and cheaper in bulk
borg with an external hard drive and borgbase as a remote. I use the 2-2-1 rule (🙈), as I struggle to find a good way to do another backup and RAID does not count 😬
What's the 2-2-1 rule?
32 different copies of the data in 2 different locations is 1 actual backup (it's actually 3-2-1...)As dumb/simple/boring as this may be...? An external hard drive.
....
....what? It doesn't require you to be online 24/7, works at any(tm) PC, and the speed is really great -- even on a potato.
Unless you work at NASA or at IBM or similars -- then feel free to call me dum.
That is great for hardware failures, but what about disasters? I would hate to lose my house to a fire and all the data (including things not replaceable, like family photos) I have on my server at the same time because my primary and backup were both destroyed.
Eh....you've got a point there. Then again, there is always pendrives and other extremely small devices where you can copy your (mostly important/crucial) files in and carry it along with your house/car keys or something like that.
While I agree with you, hard drives do have a shelf life. How many years seems to be up for debate but it does exist. If you don’t have multiple drives that are of different ages you may be in a world of hurt one day.
Why? If you check the drive once a month, and it fails once per 10 years on average, the time when both the back up drive and the main drive fail simultaneously is on average 2340 years. Of couse they are much more likely to fail if they're old but the odds are very small.
I have a hot storage NAS that backups to a warm storage NAS.
I backup every week and scrub every month.
I have 2 x ZFS1 pools that contains 3 x 20TB disks each.
With ECC ram, scrubbing, and independent pools, it'll take a house fire to kill my local storage.
I also have a constant backing to Backblaze and yearly encrypted backup that I ship to a friend across the world.
Duplicati to Backblaze B2 for the important stuff. For as far as the media library goes, no backup just local raid setup...
Backblaze B2 for automatic syncing of all the little files
Glacier for long term archiving of old big files that never change
External HDD in my wifi network. It runs Samba. I can just drag and drop folders and it transfers over wifi.
Are you using a Synology NAS?
Tears... Natural, salty, wet tears...
Veeam backup and replication at home and at work. At home a copy goes to a NAS, another copy goes to backblaze b2 currently.
Backups and archived files go to my home server which then backups to backblaze b2.
My setup exactly, with the addition of using M-Discs to backup my core important stuff.
I use SyncThing to backup our cell phones to my on-prem server, and then use BackBlaze Personal Backup for a cloud copy.
I used to have everything backed up to a 2TB USB drive. Which I accidentally dropped down the stairs. I lost thousands of family photos and documents. That changed my backup perspective.
I now have a Synology NAS, with 12TB in a RAID5 array (for a bit of disk redundancy). All my home devices, Proxmox servers etc back up here. The NAS also holds a few TB of media. Attached to it I have a USB hard drive (also 12TB). The NAS gets fully backed up to the USB drive nightly.
I also have a remote Raspberry Pi with a smaller USB drive (4TB) attached to it at my brother's house (in another country), where I backup most of the contents of my home NAS. I don't back up the media, just the important stuff. I might have to upgrade to a larger drive...
If it's the only copy, it's not a backup. It's the master.
Yup :) Learned my lesson the hard (lol) way.
I use wasabi s3, I back up to that using restic.
Do you mean 25TB as the storj site says 25gb? Did some promotion give you that much free?
I want 25 TB ☹️
That's amazing. Hopefully I can get the same
That seems to be the key bit, since everyone can use up to 25TB (if they can pay for it). Are you also hosting a node to earn
creditstokens?That looks like a cool setup, but I would never trust important data to some crypto shit (Storj) no matter what kind of track record they have.
To back up my Synology: My first level is an old Synology, the second is Amazon Glacier.
Git Annex.
Took me a while to wrap my head around it, but nothing comes close to it once you set it up.
Edit: should have read the post more carefully, I use Git Annex both locally and on a VPS I rent from openbsd.amsterdam for off-site backups.
Somehow "took me a while to wrap my head around it" doesn't make me feel comfortable. Apart from git-annex themselves saying that they aren't a backup system and just a building block to maybe create one, a backup system should imho be dead simple sind easy to understand.
Once you actually start using it it is dead simple and integrates extremely well with stuff you (might) already do.
I have a Git repo which contains my dotfiles + every “large” (annexed) file I want to back up under my home directory.
Git annex automatically tracks where all annexed files are, how many copies there are on various repos, etc.
I add and modify files using mostly standard git commands.
It supports pretty much anything as a “remote”.
It’s extremely simple to restore backups locally or remotely.
Basically Git annex is the Git of backup solutions IME, allowing you extreme flexibility to do exactly what you want, provided you take the time to learn how to do what you want.
Features that are important to me are things like an easy overview of all backup jobs (ideal via a web UI), snapshots going back every day for a week and after that every month. Backup to providers like Backblaze or AWS and the ability to browse these backups and individual snapshots.
I'd assume that you can build all of this with git annex in some way. But I really want something that works out of the box. E.g. install the backup software give it some things to backup and an B2 bucket and then go.
What I'm curious about is that the git-annex site explicitly days that they aren't a backup system, but you describe it as such.
I don’t care about stuff working OOTB - half the fun is messing around with things IMO.
I also don’t care about web UIs and similar features (I always got the impression from selfhosting communities that this is considered important but I never really understood why - I don’t spend all day staring at statistics, and when I need some info I can get it through the terminal usually).
Also, first sentence on Git Annex’s website:
Not sure why you’re saying it’s not a backup solution.
Efit: I guess the “what git-annex is not” page says this.
To quote a comment by the creator on the same page:
So basically he says this just so people won’t yell at him when they fail to use it as a backup solution correctly.
I generally agree. Backups for me are just something I don't want to tinker with. It's important to me that they work OOTB, are easy to grasp and I have a good overview.
The web interface is important to me because it gives me that overview from any device I'm currently using without needing to type anything into a terminal. The OOTB is important to me since I want to be able to easily set this all up again even without access to my Ansible setup or previous configuration.
To each their own. I'm not saying your way of doing this is wrong. It's just not for me. This is just my reasoning / preferences. It's also the reason something like borg wasn't my chosen solution, even though it's generally considered great.
I understand your position, though I always have access to a terminal pretty much so I still don’t see the point of a web UI.
Though I realize I’m in the minority here.
I do once a day rsync my data to another drive. I can restore a file, if I accidentaly deleted it. Important stuff goes encrypted via rclone additionaly to a hetzner storagebox.
Duplicati, to a friend's home server who lives in another town.
I hate to ask the scary question, but have you tried to restore your backups before? I used Duplicati and discovered that none of my backups were usable and ended up switching to Duplicacy.
+1 for Duplicacy. It just works, truly does. Duplicati on the other hand seems to work, but has a tendency to fail on restore, just as you described.
It works just fine for me, but I've heared scary storries so now Im using:
An important question though.
I have, when I first set it up, and again once when I needed to.
How would one realistically go about testing their backup? Do you need a bunch of empty drives?
You don't need to do full restores, spot check random files.
This is why I switched to restic.
I use OneDrive. Buy the Costco subscription and get like 15 months for around 110 CAD. GIVES 6 TB. I create some fake accountsink the sharing to my main account. I have an encrypted rxlone share for some things and others I GPG encryot the tar before sending it up. Been working fine for a couple years and I have multiple TB backed up.
My truenas backs up to B2 Backblaze. Set it up years ago and haven't touched it since.
(you should test your backups)
You may have, but this is a friendly reminder just in case.
Yeah I have. I work in tech, so I know better :)
Restic using resticprofile to configure and schedule backup runs.
AWS Glacier. I use the Synology plugin that does it automatically on a schedule.
https://aws.amazon.com/es/s3/storage-classes/glacier/
Their prices are ridicules if you add cost of outbound traffic.
But if not (for disaster recovery only) it is pretty cheap. Like 1$/TB/month.
I hope to never have to restore from there. It’s not something you’re to do frequently.
I have been with idrive since 2009. At the time they were the only ones that allowed backups of network attached storage on their cheaper personal plans. Everyone else saw that as an "enterprise" feature which required a business plan. Which was bullsh*t, because lots of home NAS devices were being sold.
Anyway, I haven't done a recent comparison of services, but I remain happy with idrive.
Thesedays I no longer backup on a computer with a mapped drive, but directly from my NAS which runs the idrive software.
I had a catastrophic dual drive failure a few years ago, one failed and another failed during the raid rebuild! I was able to restore about 1tb of data and didn't lose anything important.
They also offer backup and restore by shipping a drive to you if you want to avoid the huge initial backup or a total restore, but I haven't used that feature.
They do also have a mobile app, but last time I tried it, it wasn't great.
I use nightly borg backup to a separate box and then that box uses rclone to back up the borg repo offsite. Before running the borg backup I export all databases and docker volumes so they get picked up.