Someone on Lemmy posted a phrase recently: “If you’re not prepared to manage backups then you’re not prepared to self host.”
This seems like not only sound advice but a crucial attitude. My backup plans have been fairly sporadic as I’ve been entering into the world of self hosting. I’m now at a point where I have enough useful software and content that losing my hard drive would be a serious bummer. All of my most valuable content is backed up in one way or another, but it’s time for me to get serious.
I’m currently running an Ubuntu Server with a number of Docker containers, and lots of audio, video, and documents. I’d like to be able to back up everything to a reliable cloud service. I currently have a subscription to proton drive, which is a nice padding to have, but which I knew from the start would not be really adequate. Especially since there is no native Linux proton drive capability.
I’ve read good things about iDrive, S3, and Backblaze. Which one do you use? Would you recommend it? What makes your short list? what is the best value?
I’ve been using pcloud. They do one time upfront payments for ‘lifetime’ cloud storage. Catch a sale and it’s ~$160/TB. For something long term like backups it seems unbeatable. To the point I sort of don’t expect them to actually last forever, but if they last 2-3 years it’s a decent deal still.
Use rclone to upload my files, honestly not ideal though since it’s meant for file synchronisation not backups. Also they are dog slow. Downloading my 4TBs takes ~10 days.
Also don’t forget to restore test, otherwise you may as well not do backups. I have a reminder for once a year to test them, not just if it works but also what the performance is just in case.
This is the part that gets me. I don’t know how to automate this. I periodically retrieve something from the backups, which, so far, has worked. That’s not really good insurance, though. Any suggests or resources, ideally for borg and/restic?
With backblaze you can set lifcycle rules. For example, any file with the regex “daily” in it automatic gets deleted after 30 days. And any file with “yearly” in it gets deleted after 5 years
I use borgbackup to create backups. I point backups to another home computer and borgbase.com. Borg itself is an amazing tool. I think you should learn how it works even if it doesnt end up being the best fit for you.
When I’ve signed up was the cheaper.
I’ve just checked and it’s $6.99/TB/month and Backblaze B2 is actually cheaper ($6/TB/month).
Are there other differences that you know of? There must be since everyone is using Baclblaze.
I’ve been using rsync.net for a while now. It’s been stable, fast, and relatively inexpensive. There’s also the benefit that it’s easy to script automated backups directly to it. For more Dropbox-like functionality, I have a Nextcloud instance that uses rsync.net as external storage. It’s been great so far!
Is it? I’m genuinely asking. I haven’t seen statistics on how much storage people looking for cloud backup solutions use, but to me, anything under 1TB seems too small to be worth it, these days.
First copy on offline USB disk on my server itself. Disk is turned on, backup done, disk goes off. Once a day.
Second copy on a USB drive connected to an OpenWRT router of my home, the furthest away from the server (in case of fire, I could be able to grab either of the two).
I was about to make one because iDrive has decided to double their prices, probably because they could.
$30/tb/year to $50/tb/year is a pretty big jump, but they were also way under the market price so capitalism gonna capital and they’re “optimizing” or someshit.
I’ve love to be able to push my stuff to some other provider for closer to that $30, but uh, yeah, no freaking clue who since $60/tb/year seems to be the more average price.
Alternately, a storage option that’s not S3-based would also probably be acceptable. Backups are ~300gb, give or take, and the stuff that does need S3-style storage I can stuff in Cloudflare’s free tier.
Yeah, it was $2.5/tb/month, now it’s $4.1/tb/month.
Still cheaper than backblaze’s $6 which seems the only other option everyone suggests, so it’ll have to do for the moment.
I created another account, paid for another year at a promotional price, and then deleted my old account.
I will eventually have to come up with a more sustainable cloud/off site backup now that i need more than just a few TB.
Since this is really my “last resort” backup, I’m not too concerned, as anything that would require me to actually restore from this backup set would likely be catastrophic in a life-ending way.
After some research on here and reddit about 6 months so, I settled on Borgbase and its been pretty good. I also manually save occasionally to proton drive but you’re right to give up on that as a solution!
The hardest part was choosing the backup method and properly setting up Borg or restic on my machine properly, especially with docker and databases. I have ended up with adding db
backup images to each container with an important db, saving to a specific folder. Then that and all the files are backed up by restic to an attached external drive at well as borgbase. This happens at a specific time in the morning and found a restic action to stop all docker containers first, back them up, then spin them back up. I am find the guides that I used if it’s helpful to you.
I also checked my backups a few times and found a few small problems I had to fix. I got the message from order users several times that your backups are useless unless you regularly test them.
I’ve thought about gutting an old toaster, like for toasting bread, to house a raspberry pi and instead of slices of bread you can stick harddrives into the slots. Two bays. The prime motivation is just to be able to say that I can run Linux on a toaster. Next step would be running Linux on a dead badger I guess.
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I like S3 because I only pay for what I use and it has auto storage tiering.
I’ve been using pcloud. They do one time upfront payments for ‘lifetime’ cloud storage. Catch a sale and it’s ~$160/TB. For something long term like backups it seems unbeatable. To the point I sort of don’t expect them to actually last forever, but if they last 2-3 years it’s a decent deal still.
Use rclone to upload my files, honestly not ideal though since it’s meant for file synchronisation not backups. Also they are dog slow. Downloading my 4TBs takes ~10 days.
3,2,1.
My nas is a Synology with raid.
3, 2, 1. ❤
Without implementing this, it’s a delusion that some company, regardless of the size and reputation, can be trusted to keep our data safe.
Also don’t forget to restore test, otherwise you may as well not do backups. I have a reminder for once a year to test them, not just if it works but also what the performance is just in case.
This is the part that gets me. I don’t know how to automate this. I periodically retrieve something from the backups, which, so far, has worked. That’s not really good insurance, though. Any suggests or resources, ideally for borg and/restic?
How do you do versioning with rsync? I use rdiff.
Maybe it’s diff presented as versions? I use hyper backup on Synology.
Similar to these steps:
https://gist.github.com/mrl22/476d710fea63d71a770d0d44ca54325a
You can get append only backups on backblaze with their lifecycle rules. So that can have ransomware protection too
“Append only backup” what’s that?
Its a system where you can only apppend, not delete.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Append-only
Its what’s required for ransomware safe backup system, since the attacker can’t delete your backups because they can only append
Oh, I see, I didn’t know that “nomenclature”. Thanks! Good for some thing, dangerous for other because the stored data keeps growing.
With backblaze you can set lifcycle rules. For example, any file with the regex “daily” in it automatic gets deleted after 30 days. And any file with “yearly” in it gets deleted after 5 years
I use 2 matching Synology NAS systems. 1 backs up to the other daily. Then one of them backs up to Synology C2 weekly.
I use borgbackup to create backups. I point backups to another home computer and borgbase.com. Borg itself is an amazing tool. I think you should learn how it works even if it doesnt end up being the best fit for you.
One of few ransomware protected solutions
Nobody that uses Wasabi?
Too expensive
When I’ve signed up was the cheaper. I’ve just checked and it’s $6.99/TB/month and Backblaze B2 is actually cheaper ($6/TB/month). Are there other differences that you know of? There must be since everyone is using Baclblaze.
I prefer my local storage. Can’t vouch for any cloud storage.
Upside of Wasabi to my infrastructure: It’s compatible with Veeam.
My backup plan includes Backrest (restic) up to B2. So far so good!
I’ve been using rsync.net for a while now. It’s been stable, fast, and relatively inexpensive. There’s also the benefit that it’s easy to script automated backups directly to it. For more Dropbox-like functionality, I have a Nextcloud instance that uses rsync.net as external storage. It’s been great so far!
I like that I can interface with it in ways that I already understand (eg rclone, sync, sshfs).
Being able to run some commands on the server meant that I could use rclone to copy my AWS and OneDrive backups directly cloud-to-cloud.
They require you to buy a minimum of 800Gb, which for most people is an overkill
Is it? I’m genuinely asking. I haven’t seen statistics on how much storage people looking for cloud backup solutions use, but to me, anything under 1TB seems too small to be worth it, these days.
First copy on offline USB disk on my server itself. Disk is turned on, backup done, disk goes off. Once a day.
Second copy on a USB drive connected to an OpenWRT router of my home, the furthest away from the server (in case of fire, I could be able to grab either of the two).
Third copy offsite on a VPS.
I use restic & backrest with great satisfaction.
I also restic to b2. Found it the best value.
Timely post.
I was about to make one because iDrive has decided to double their prices, probably because they could.
$30/tb/year to $50/tb/year is a pretty big jump, but they were also way under the market price so capitalism gonna capital and they’re “optimizing” or someshit.
I’ve love to be able to push my stuff to some other provider for closer to that $30, but uh, yeah, no freaking clue who since $60/tb/year seems to be the more average price.
Alternately, a storage option that’s not S3-based would also probably be acceptable. Backups are ~300gb, give or take, and the stuff that does need S3-style storage I can stuff in Cloudflare’s free tier.
Yeah, it was $2.5/tb/month, now it’s $4.1/tb/month.
Still cheaper than backblaze’s $6 which seems the only other option everyone suggests, so it’ll have to do for the moment.
My idrive plan went from just over $100 to $250.
I created another account, paid for another year at a promotional price, and then deleted my old account.
I will eventually have to come up with a more sustainable cloud/off site backup now that i need more than just a few TB.
Since this is really my “last resort” backup, I’m not too concerned, as anything that would require me to actually restore from this backup set would likely be catastrophic in a life-ending way.
I use restic to backblaze b2.
Yep, Duplicacy to Backblaze B2 for me
Same
After some research on here and reddit about 6 months so, I settled on Borgbase and its been pretty good. I also manually save occasionally to proton drive but you’re right to give up on that as a solution!
The hardest part was choosing the backup method and properly setting up Borg or restic on my machine properly, especially with docker and databases. I have ended up with adding db backup images to each container with an important db, saving to a specific folder. Then that and all the files are backed up by restic to an attached external drive at well as borgbase. This happens at a specific time in the morning and found a restic action to stop all docker containers first, back them up, then spin them back up. I am find the guides that I used if it’s helpful to you.
I also checked my backups a few times and found a few small problems I had to fix. I got the message from order users several times that your backups are useless unless you regularly test them.
I’m still looking for a case that can hold a Pi and a 3.5” drive that I can set up at someone else’s house.
I’m getting this set up at my parents’. Just gotta remind them not to touch the box!
https://zfs.rent/
https://peppertech.io/products/terrapi-xtreme-duo-open-frame-case-for-raspberry-pi-and-2x-3-5-hdd-drives-3d-stl-print-file?variant=42406248480959&country=US¤cy=USD&gQT=1
Tape/glue the Pi in the case to the HDD.
Done.
I’ve thought about gutting an old toaster, like for toasting bread, to house a raspberry pi and instead of slices of bread you can stick harddrives into the slots. Two bays. The prime motivation is just to be able to say that I can run Linux on a toaster. Next step would be running Linux on a dead badger I guess.
I would hope someone has made a toaster drive dock by now, missed opportunity
Yes but can you run Doom on a dead badger
For inspiration, take a look at the Nextcloud Devices - just for the hardware ideas.
I’m still running a Nextcloud Box (with the original Western Digital drive) and it’s fine for my needs.
I can recommend Restic with Wasabi S3 as cloud storage backend.