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?
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?
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
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
I use rsync and backblaze b2.
I use it for version control and cost, about £2 for 750GB
How are you using rsync with B2? Are you mounting the bucket locally?
Sorry I’m using rclone.
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
Veeam backup and replication at home and at work. At home a copy goes to a NAS, another copy goes to backblaze b2 currently.
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.
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.
It works just fine for me, but I’ve heared scary storries so now Im using:
- Kopia to backblaze b2 (all data)
- Kopia to local disk (all data)
- Duplicati to google drive (only 1 folder)
+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.
An important question though.
I have, when I first set it up, and again once when I needed to.
To back up my Synology: My first level is an old Synology, the second is Amazon Glacier.
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 :)
Regardless of service, if you don’t test your backups, you have none.
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.
Ehhh I would say then you have probabilistic backups. There’s some percent chance they’re okay, and some percent chance they’re useless. (And maybe some percent chance they’re in between those extremes.) With the odds probably not in your favor. 😄
Schrodinger’s backups.
- Windows PC: Backblaze personal
- Homeserver: Proxmox Backup Server mirrored to backblaze R2
- Lemmy VPS: Hetzner daily snapshots
- Other VPS: Look behind you, a three headed monkey!
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.
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…
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.
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 restic to backup my raspberry Pi’s to my Synology NAS and backup my NAS to backblaze.
- restic > backblaze b2, nightly & automatic
- restic > normally unplugged drive, every couple weeks (manual, recurring reminder)
Backblaze b2, borgbase.com. There are also programs like dejadup that will let you backup to popular cloud drives. The alternatives are limitless.
