this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2023
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datahoarder

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Right now, I have around 20TB of data in redundant ZFS mirrors, so I am somewhat protected against any single drive failing. Critical data is backed up at various cloud providers, but that's only a few gigs of all my data.

Looking at S3 pricing, It seems rather unfeasible to back up my data there or on the other "big" cloud providers, as it would cost me around $180 with AWS or half of that with backblaze.

How and where do you guys back up your data?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

The amount of data I backup offsite is significantly less than 20 TB. Therefore, my answer to your question will probably not help you.

I store my offsite backups at rsync.net and in one of Hetzners Storage Boxes. For backups in general, I use Borg.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Hetzner Storage Boxes seem much more affordable than AWS, thanks for the suggestion!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

However, I would not use the storage boxes as the only backup. The offer has two disadvantages.

  • The boxes are regularly unavailable for some time due to maintenance work. But these maintenance times are announced in advance.

  • Hetzner does not specify what kind of RAID is used.

I therefore only use my box as an additional offsite backup and to swap out less important files.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

The real question is how much of that data is irreplaceable. While I hoard like most of you I only off-site backup the hand full of TBs I can't live without if there was a full system failure. It's not the perfect solution but most of my hoarded data isn't mission critical

EDIT: to answer your question though I use AWS glacier storage

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Apart from the few gigs of really private and self-made data, most of it would probably be replacable, it's just a matter of how much work that would be. On the other hand, I wonder how much of my media collection I would actually miss were it to get lost.

I will look into AWS glacier, thank you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Sounds like we have similar setups, and knowing that I'd highly recommend investing in automating as much of your current setup as possible so you can quickly get things back up and running with little to no interaction. Backing up configurations and library metadata might prove to be pretty useful in resurrecting a dead server.

Also rclone is going to be your best friend if you don't already have that setup

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

My line of thinking is that radarr and sonarr are my backups. If the drives went boom then just have those two sync my library. It may take a couple weeks but I can live with that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You could look into AWS Glacier or S3 Deep Storage tier. If you have 20TB stored that’s about $20/month(YMMV) which isn’t wonderful but that’s a lot of data so it’s understandable.

Being a cheapskate, if I can get something back or it’s not crucial it’s on a RAID array with snapshots, everything else is either encrypted Duplicati backups to Google Drive (Windows) or encrypted borg backups to Borgbase(Linux)

Borgbase is very reasonably priced and if you have a large storage space in GDrive due to having one of their other services it’s a good use of it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Hadn't heard of borgbase before, I'll check it out. Thanks.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago
  • Backblaze B2 for my most important stuff. Encrypted of course
  • Backup HDDs and M-Discs stored at friend’s house
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

I just have a Synology NAS running a Hyper Backup task to an external USB HDD that I physically drive to my parents house whenever I go there, at which point the new data gets copied to another external drive I keep there using rsync.

Not the most ideal solution but it works for now. Eventually it would be nice to get another NAS to keep at my parents house and have nightly backups going over the internet.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

It's not really enabled right now, but my offsite backup is a combination of a Raspberry Pi 4B, a QNAP TL-D800C and a Tasmota WiFi power plug at a family member's place.

I SSH in to the always-on Pi over a VPN connection, send a command to the Tasmota to turn on the QNAP disk shelf, do a zfs send and once it finishes it shuts down the disk shelf again.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

How about good old offsite HDDs, tapes, etc. I guess it depends on the target. If it's family photos, you probably want something like this -- after all, if you get hit by a bus and stop paying the hosting bill for a couple of months, all that stuff could be gone.

Variations on the scheme include rotating media into safe deposit boxes at a bank, etc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I use Scaleway Glacier since I could actually afford to pull the data out, unlike S3.

[–] Bread 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

have found the best idea is to go out of your way to find a friend that wants to collect the same things you do or is willing to be be your backup if you are theirs. Covering the remote backup rule.

I have a server that automatically backs up to theirs and vice versa. With team work, we can afford to back up so much more stuff.

We are all datahoarders here. I am sure there are people who will be your friend and also need a remote backup. With ZFS encryption and ZFS send, you don't even need to trust them either.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I used to store a bunch of hard drives with ZFS snapshots of my stuff in the garage. Not ideal, but better than nothing, and it’s technically a separate building lol

I only have roughly 5TB of data though.

Definitely looking to improve the situation, cause at the moment I have no offsite backups at all :/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

It would be marginally risky, but considering how many people have large storage arrays having a “mutual backup compact” between two folks where each can run backups to the others array would help get you an affordable offsite backup for catastrophes.

I see a bunch of people with 10TB of data and 30TB arrays and if two of them got together they would both be reasonably safe from a total array failure.

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