this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2025
117 points (96.1% liked)

Selfhosted

41066 readers
318 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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?

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago

Local storage + a Veeam VBR VM

[–] ogarcia@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

Restic (or rustic) and Hetzner storage box 🤩

[–] Shimitar@feddit.it 3 points 3 days ago

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.

[–] vividspecter@lemm.ee 19 points 4 days ago (5 children)

A server in a friend/family member's home. All of the cloud based backups I've encountered seem either unaffordable or have annoying limitations.

[–] courval@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

This is the way

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

This. Install a NAS in a friend's house, give them 10% of the capacity as a thank you.

[–] gazter@aussie.zone 2 points 2 days ago

I have one in theirs, they have one in mine.

[–] egonallanon@lemm.ee 5 points 4 days ago

Yup I've got a box in my mum's house that all my off site backups go to and it's a damn site cheaper just to give her some money for the electricity cost of it each month than pay for any cloud service.

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Or simply sneakernet drives to a friend’s home. Good excuse to visit a friend more often.

[–] droolio@feddit.uk 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

100% this. OP, whatever solution you come up with, strongly consider disentangling your backup 'storage' from the platform or software, so you're not 'locked in'.

IMO, you want to have something universal, that works with both local and 'cloud' (ideally off-site on a own/family/friend's NAS; far less expensive in the long run). Trust me, as someone who came from CrashPlan and moved to Duplicacy 8 years ago, I no longer worry about how robust my backups are, as I can practice 3-2-1 on my own terms.

[–] calmluck9349@infosec.pub 21 points 4 days ago (6 children)

3,2,1.

My nas is a Synology with raid.

  1. Backup with versions to a single large HD via USB. This ransomware protection or accidental deletion. (Rsync)
  2. Offsite copy to backblaze b2.One version. (Rsync) (~$6/month) This would be natual disaster protection. flood, fire.
  3. Second not raided cheaper Synology at a friends on the other coast. This has ~3 versions. Sorta the backup to the first two.
[–] lemmeBe@sh.itjust.works 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] coffeetastesbadlikecoffee@sh.itjust.works 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] qwexfle@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 days ago

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?

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] Unforeseen@sh.itjust.works 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I use the unlimited consumer backblaze with private key on a windows VM. I provision a 40tb iscsi connection to the VM from a NAS and all kinds of various homelab systems and devices store thier backups there. Works great and is the cheapest possible option at $9 a month.

[–] Goodtoknow@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Is that not against their TOS? Could make the service more expensive for the rest of us

[–] Unforeseen@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 days ago

I'm not sure about the iscsi protocol. They allow VMs, including harddrives via USB, so the point of doing this making it more expensive does not apply considering someone could just hook up 100tb+ of USB drives and still be clear under the TOS.

If they did have a problem with this I would just do that instead.

[–] horse_battery_staple@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Bsckblaze doesn't care, they know they'll get their money when @Unforeseen@sh.itjust.works tries to get data back from backup.

[–] lud@lemm.ee 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Restoring data is free from backblaze.

[–] horse_battery_staple@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Well yes and no. The rate at which you get your data back is where the gotcha lies anything up to 8TB is free if you send them $280 and they'll refund the money once they get the drive back. Anything over 8TB is where it gets pricey.

[–] lud@lemm.ee 2 points 3 days ago

And do that multiple times?

There aren't any "gotchas" they absolutely lose money us who store more than a few TB but its worth it considering that we are in the minority.

Someone from BB posted a graph showing the distribution of data usage over all users and the VAST majority are under 1-2 TB

[–] Unforeseen@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago

And the situation where I need to restore more then 8tb would be when I lost all my original data, and the backup NAS itself.

If that happens I'm not worrying about spending $280.

[–] peregus@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] peregus@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago

I prefer my local storage. Can't vouch for any cloud storage.
Upside of Wasabi to my infrastructure: It's compatible with Veeam.

[–] eyes_uncl0uded@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

I started this past year with iDrive because of their incredible welcome deal if you switch from another service. I started a trial with Dropbox with the same email and sent them the requested screenshots for verification- they approved it. Spending $10 for the first year of 5TB

It's pretty slow on uploading, but it works. Customer service is attentive and caring. Probably going to go to a local NAS and a different online solution within the year. It's a nice cheap padding as I learn how to do this right. The intro deal might be worth it for you, too, though I don't think it's the best long-term option

[–] paperd@lemmy.zip 11 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I use restic to backblaze b2.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] kevincox@lemmy.ml 8 points 4 days ago (6 children)

I've been using Restic to Backblaze B2.

I don't really trust B2 that much (I think it is mostly a single-DC kind of storage) but it is reasonably priced and easy to use. Plus as long as their failures aren't correlated with mine it should be fine.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] philpo@feddit.org 1 points 3 days ago

My current strategy might be a bit over the top,but it works.

I have two main entities that contain data worth backing up - the NAS and to a much smaller extend my Proxmox cluster (which is partly within my house,partly at Hetzner).

User PCs do not have any User data saved, they all work with network drives mapped to the NAS, only irrelevant amounts of data are stored on them that gets backed up via Free File Sync. For the Notebooks I use the same concept as we are using a WG VPN 99,9% of the time anyway,but some important folders get also synched via Free File Sync for offline use if no mobile connection is available.

For proper backups I have basically three classes of data that I maintain: Prio 1: The real real important stuff. Photos of once in a lifetime events, important documents, etc. Prio 2: The stuff you still don't want to loose. All other photos, the scanned documents, home folders, VMs/LXX backups, configurations, etc. Prio3: Everything else,mostly data that could be downloaded again. Easily. Movies, etc.

Prio3 data is currently only living in the NAS and does get backed up once in a while on a external hard drive. It's mainly backed up as I am lazy and in case the NAS craps out I don't want to reload all the stuff...that would take months.

Prio2 data gets backed up fully: For the NAS data: It gets backed up to B2 with versioning according to my needs (usually 3d,2w,3m,1y,but that depends highly on the source). Additionally full external hard drive backups every few weeks. (I would kill to get my hands on a proper tape drive again,I had one back in the day,but it was used and old and died) Some data is also stored on Synology C2 atm,but I will replace that soon with another cloud provider, likely Hetzner.

For Proxmox: Basically the same, but I use TUXIS instead of B2 and Hetzner instead of Synology C2. Additionally I have a old PC with Proxmox backup server which turns on once a week and safes the whole cluster before turning off again. In the future this PC is planned to replace the External hard disk's,but currently hard drive prices are insane.

For the P1 data: Same as above,but it's definitely staying on a second cloud provider. Additionally I also create archive blue ray disk's every few month. (Usually every 4). These go into the safe deposit box at my bank and additionally to a second storage location.

And of course I have detailed instructions about this in my will so even if both my wife and I die my kid can figure it out.

[–] rhys@mastodon.rhys.wtf 5 points 4 days ago

@gedaliyah If you're not married to managed cloud services, services like rsync.net or a Hetzner storage box work very well. They require more effort, but you have complete control and can do some fun things (like using rclone's crypt module with them). Plus rsync.net is super useful if your sources use ZFS.

Of the cloud providers, Backblaze is the one that anecdotally seems most popular.

[–] rutrum@lm.paradisus.day 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] calamityjanitor@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

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.

[–] kylian0087@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 days ago

For devices like laptops and PCs. I use Urbackup to make backups.

For all the apps I host on Kubernetes I setup S3 backups to self hosted Minio.

[–] xylogx@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

I like S3 because I only pay for what I use and it has auto storage tiering.

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 3 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Backblaze 200% of the time.

The only thing that sucks about backblaze is that they're not designed for enterprise. No account balances. No multi users.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Wxfisch@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago

I use Backblaze B2 through my Synology NAS to offsite my important data. Most things though I just backup locally and accept the risk of needing to rebuild certain things (like most of my movie/TV media files since I can just re-rip my physical media, and the storage costs are not worth the couple of days of time in that unlikely case).

I really think this is key when thinking about your backup strategy that is specific to self hosting compared to enterprise operations. The costs come out of our pockets with no revenue to back it up. Managing backups for self hosting IMO is just as much about understanding your risk appetite and then choosing a strategy to match that. For example I keep just single copy in B2, since the failure mode I’m looking to protect against is catastrophic failure of my NAS which holds my main backups and media. I then use Proton Drive and OneDrive to backup secrets for my 2FA setups and encryption for my B2 bucket. This isn’t how I would do it at work (we have a fair more robust, but much more expensive setup). But my costs for B2 are around $15/mo which I am fine with. When I tried keeping multiple copies it had grown to over $50/mo before I cared enough to really rethink things (the cost of the hobby I told myself).

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago (5 children)

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.

[–] Cyber@feddit.uk 1 points 3 days ago

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.

[–] AtariDump@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Tape/glue the Pi in the case to the HDD.

Done.

[–] pmk@piefed.social 4 points 4 days ago (2 children)

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.

[–] mirisgaiss@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

I would hope someone has made a toaster drive dock by now, missed opportunity

[–] Wiz@midwest.social 2 points 3 days ago

Yes but can you run Doom on a dead badger

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›