Stumbling through getting a proper backup regime in place. I have an unraid system running a proper array, and am trying to setup backups for two separate machines (one windows one debian). I’ve successfully setup a file share, and have duplicati running. Are there disadvantages to just setting the network folder as the destination for the backup? It seems a little hamfisted (and the data rates are terrible).
It seems like there’s probably a better way to do this…
Well for sure that is better than nothing, so since you have it keep doing it until/unless you have something better.
Your next task is to make sure you can restore the data. Since the data is - probably - saved, you have good odds. Practice restoring means that when a computer breaks you will faster be able to get the replacement running again. Practice also means in the off chance something isn’t saved you find out about it while your old computer is still running.
Then we need to think about threats.
Ransomware that encrypts your disk will encrypt that shared drive too. I don’t know what unraid offers, but you should enable read-only snapshots (now practice restoring them!), and save those snapshots. Ideally you want some pattern like all backups for a week, then 1 backup a week for a month, then 1 backup a month for a year, and 1 backup a year for the next 7 years. This way you can just go back to before the ransomware and restore from backups.
You might delete one file on accident. You are likely not to realize it for a while. One more reason for the pattern saved above. Make sure you can restore individual files.
Your house might burn down destroying all computers. You want a copy of all that data someplace else, maybe more than one someplace elses. Though perhaps you only want a yearly and weekly copy. If the data is encrypted (very good idea for off site!) make sure the key is saved someplace else secure where you can find it - a key you can remember is a bad key so thought about how to save the key is important.
You might die or become mentally disabled with important files that your heirs need. Pictures, wills, tax/bank data (including passwords!). document the above well enough that someone else can at least figure it out. Ideally you would know someone unrelated to you into computers and leave them a lot of money ($5000?) to figure out your system and get your heirs the important files after you die. (this should be a great business opportunity, but odds are not enough people will pay for it)
There are a lot of variations I didn’t think of, but I think I covered enough to start you out. You get to decide how far you go. I’m not far enough myself, but at least I have one backup in my RAID.
One last thought - you might have some data you don’t want backed up. If you delete the evidence of your crime but the backups are there they can get you. Your secret porn collection might be legal, but still not something you want your heirs to find out about, maybe keep it in a different way? Your call here.
I think you’re asking about the Samba share? If it works, there’s no real downside except the speed and general wonkiness of the SMB protocol.
As I would rank the different options:
- Rsync+SSH would be fastest if you’re sending entire directories and not packaging first. A bit slower if sending huge files.
- NFS would be fastest if sending prepackaged large files, but overall slower if sending a bunch of smaller files
- SMB will be slowest in any scenario, but may be easier for you
SMB isn’t really all that slow these days.
I have NFS and SMB shares set up (same directory) and copying files to/from them maxes out my gigabit LAN.
SSH on the other hand is slower, because there’s more CPU overhead.
All data and benchmarks would disagree with you. If you find something showing that SMB isn’t slower than the others mentioned, I’d love to see it.
I disagree with the other person, rsync + ssh is faster even in my own benchmarks. But samba is plenty fast enough these days, I can easily have it max out my gigabit network so I don’t need anything faster. So for me (and I would guess the majority of people) speed really isn’t a concern anymore, so I use samba because it’s easy to use and it makes sharing network folders to anything else a breeze.
It’s like phones. Yeah technically the newest iPhone is faster than this years budget Samsung. But when’s the last time your phone was actually a bottleneck? (Unless you’re one of those people who play games, in which case, actually please respond cause I could use some really nice idle city builders for my phone pls)
Real world usage tells me all I need to know.
This is really helpful thank you! I think it’s samba share? Whatever Unraid has just baked in and calls “shares”.
Googling rsync that looks like it’ll work, and faster is better!
While I do want true backups of a few drives (as in: if a drive fails, restore the backup to a new drive, physically swap it out, and you’re good to go), the majority of the data I’m just looking to have it “backed up” (as in: all of the files are present in more than one location). The majority of the data is ~18TB of media for my plex server. My unraid is: 1x 2TB, 1x 10TB, 1x20TB and 1x20TB(parity). It sounds like Rsync-ing the 20TB drive with my plex media and the 20TB unraid disk would get me what I need?
Thanks for the pointers, getting a few things to google is incredibly helpful.