Back up your backups
this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2025
111 points (100.0% liked)
Selfhosted
60644 readers
597 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:
-
Be civil.
-
No spam.
-
Posts are to be related to self-hosting.
-
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or readme if you're providing a link.
-
Submission headline should match the article title.
-
No trolling.
-
Promotion posts require active participation, with an account that is at least 30 days old. F/LOSS without a paywall has exceptions, with requirements. See the rules link for details. Tags [CBH] or [AIP] are required, see the links in Rule 8 for details.
-
AI-related discussions and AI-involved promotional posts have additional requirements for tagging, as noted in Rule 7 and the AI & Promotional Post Expanded Rules post, and find example disclosures here.
Resources:
- selfh.st Newsletter and index of selfhosted software and apps
- awesome-selfhosted software
- awesome-sysadmin resources
- Self-Hosted Podcast from Jupiter Broadcasting
Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.
Questions? DM the mods!
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
The 6-5-4-3-2-1 method
I'm doing a 5-4-3-2-1 method. 5 backups. 4 on-site. 3 attached to one machine, 2 of those are on separate external usb drives synced at different intervals. 1 in the shed.
The shed as an of site backup is a good idea.
We live in the shed (it is really its own entire stone building) during our full house renovation, so I have already run electrical and cat6a to the shed and have an old router in AP mode there.
Hooking up one of those NAS boards or a 2nd hand old PC there would be a good backup option.
Mine is raspberry pi zero 2w with an external enclosure attached to solar+battery. Wi-Fi is barely consistent enough for speeds around 1/4 what they should be. I'm still working out the kinks, but thanks be to FSM for rsync and snapshots, otherwise my backup scheme would probably never be able to finish.
Sheesh. Better setup a secondary destination for my customers just in case.
3-2-1 rule also applies with external providers
Just a reminder that a cloud provider can oopsie delete your data
The customer was fucking lucky they had their data also in AWS. many companies don't do multi cloud backups.
Backblaze deleted my project drive for a multimillion dollar project I was archiving through their desktop sync. It's largely my fault for not noticing the drive had failed when considering their upfront policy about them deleting your backups after a month of inactivity. Luckily it didn't have too big of an impact because the most important files were backed up elsewhere. I do wish their desktop app had better warnings about imminent deletions though.
i wonder what trustworthy european provider to use anyway (that has similarly good pricing)
Personally I use Hetzner Storage Box
Same. It's pretty cheap, comes with unlimited free traffic and is just simple to use. Supports many ways to access it, including BorgBackup.
tho hetzner storagebox is hit or miss. you can run into deadlocks from cifs mounts on servers with it
Can I (figuratively speaking) just change the destination in my backup scripts and start writing to Hetzner... or are they using a completely different setup?
Realistically you shouldn't depend on a single place for backups
Remember 3-2-1. Three places, two mediums and one offsite
I hate to say it, but i kinda saw this coming. Ever since they went public, i lost trust in them as they become beholden to profit maximizing shareholders. I switched away 3 years ago. The part I didn't expect was the lies and insolvency.
I switched to StorJ, which supports S3 and works as a drop in replacement for a lower price.
Another good drop in alternative that speaks S3 is scaleway. Their based in France, but it's a bit more pricy, especially with the US$ taking a nosedive against the euro.
Certainly has me concerned. I'll have to investigate a bit more into the financial solvency of the company to better understand whether they are at least covering bills and such... but honestly sounds like they aren't and haven't been.
Going to need to start looking for alternative S3 type storage.
Yeah, personally I'm optimistic, but I'd be in a boat of expecting access to be shut off one day, and ready to start uploading to a new provider at any moment
I'm only concerned insofar as I don't know of a good alternative, and really don't want to spend the time shifting everything to a new system. I have 3 VPSes and 4(? 5?) home computers backing up to B2. The major ones, I have also backing up to disk, so really the risk for me is in that gap period while I find and set up on a new backup service.
This will be beyond annoying, but for me not catastrophic. Mainly, I've liked B2 - the price, and how easy it's been to use. I understand the UI; it's pretty straightforward, and it's directly supported by a lot of software. It would be a real shame if it went under due to mismanagement.
Also: another example supporting my theory that one of the major flaws in Capitalism is public trading markets. This shit wasn't an issue before they went public.
Time to set up other backups