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submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

I'm planning on setting up a nas/home server (primarily storage with some jellyfin and nextcloud and such mixed in) and since it is primarily for data storage I'd like to follow the data preservation rules of 3-2-1 backups. 3 copies on 2 mediums with 1 offsite - well actually I'm more trying to go for a 2-1 with 2 copies and one offsite, but that's besides the point. Now I'm wondering how to do the offsite backup properly.

My main goal would be to have an automatic system that does full system backups at a reasonable rate (I assume daily would be a bit much considering it's gonna be a few TB worth of HDDs which aren't exactly fast, but maybe weekly?) and then have 2-3 of those backups offsite at once as a sort of version control, if possible.

This has two components, the local upload system and the offsite storage provider. First the local system:

What is good software to encrypt the data before/while it's uploaded?

While I'd preferably upload the data to a provider I trust, accidents happen, and since they don't need to access the data, I'd prefer them not being able to, maliciously or not, so what is a good way to encrypt the data before it leaves my system?

What is a good way to upload the data?

After it has been encrypted, it needs to be sent. Is there any good software that can upload backups automatically on regular intervals? Maybe something that also handles the encryption part on the way?

Then there's the offsite storage provider. Personally I'd appreciate as many suggestions as possible, as there is of course no one size fits all, so if you've got good experiences with any, please do send their names. I'm basically just looking for network attached drives. I send my data to them, I leave it there and trust it stays there, and in case too many drives in my system fail for RAID-Z to handle, so 2, I'd like to be able to get the data off there after I've replaced my drives. That's all I really need from them.

For reference, this is gonna be my first NAS/Server/Anything of this sort. I realize it's mostly a regular computer and am familiar enough with Linux, so I can handle that basic stuff, but for the things you wouldn't do with a normal computer I am quite unfamiliar, so if any questions here seem dumb, I apologize. Thank you in advance for any information!

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[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I just rsync it once in a while to a home server running in my dad’s house. I want it done manually in a “pull” direction rather than a “push” in case I ever get hit with ransomware.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

It's not all my data but I use backblaze for offsite backup. One of the reasons I can't drop Windows. I don't have anywhere I travel often enough to do a physical drop off and when I tried setting a file server up at my parents but they would break shit by fucking with their router every time they had an internet outage or moving it around (despite repeated being told to call me first).

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I can't stand the fact that they don't support Linux

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[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Same - can sync snapshots from Truenas to Backblaze.

If you want to get real fancy you could stash an N40L cube server at your mom's house where she will never find it and VPN back to your local network and replicate snapshots to it

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I assume daily would be a bit much considering it's gonna be a few TB worth of HDDs which aren't exactly fast

What is the concern here?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Rclone to dropbox. ( was cheapest for 2tb at the time )

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

For storing the backups, I use a storage VPS. I got one from HostHatch a few years ago during Black Friday sales, with 10TB space for $10/month. Hetzner have good deals with their storage boxes, too - they offer 5TB space for $13/month if you're in the USA (you need to add VAT if you're in Europe).

A good rule of thumb is to never pay more than $5/TB/month, and during Black Friday it's closer to $2/TB/month. The LowEndTalk forum has the best Black Friday deals.

I use Borgbackup for backups, and Borgmatic to handle scheduling them. Borgbackup is a fantastic piece of software.

Borgmatic has an "append only" mode which lets you configure particular SSH keys to only be able to add data to the backup, not delete it. Even if someone/something (ransomware, malicious users, etc) gains access to your system and tries to delete the backups, they can't. Essentially, this is protection against ransomware.

This is a very common issue with other backup solutions - the client has full access to the backup, so malware on the client system could potentially delete all the backups.

I have two backup copies of most things. One copy on my home server and one copy on my storage VPS. If you do do multiple backups, Borgbackup recommend doing two separate backups rather than doing one then rsyncing it to another server.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Right now I sneaker net it. I stash a luks encrypted drive in my locker at work and bring it home once a week or so to update the backup.

At some point I'm going to set up a RPI at a friend's house, but that's down the road a bit.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I use Linux, so encryption is easy with LUKS, and Free File Sync to drives that rotate to a safety deposit box at the bank for catastrophic event, such as a house fire. Usually anything from the last few months are still on my mobile devices.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

If you are gonna go for TrueNAS, try Storj with TrueNAS Cloud task. TrueNAS made a partnership with Storj and the price is very good. https://www.truenas.com/truecloud-backup/

TlDr; The data is encrypted with restic and sent to Storj S3 storage that is further fragmenting it (and encrypting it too - so double encryption) into multiple pieces (with redundancy) and storing on other peoples TrueNASes (you can also provide your unused space btw and gain some small money back).

I am in process of setting this up (already run a working test backup) and I didn't find anything that's better than this integrated solution. Very cool!

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

If you use ZFS this becomes easy, because you can do incremental backups at the block level.

I have my home lab server and do snapshots and sends to a server at my fathers house. Then I also have an external drive that I snapshot to as well.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Idrive has built in local encryption you can enable.

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[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I have an external storage unit a couple kilometers away and two 8TB hard drives with luks+btrfs. One of them is always in the box and after taking backups, when I feel like it, I detach the drive and bike to the box to switch. I'm currently researching btrbk for updating the backup drive on my pc automatically, it's pretty manual atm. For most scenarios the automatic btrfs snapshots on my main disks are going to be enough anyway.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I got my parents to get a NAS box, stuck it in their basement. They need to back up their stuff anyway. I put in 2 18 TB drives (mirrored BTRFS raid1) from server part deals (peeps have said that site has jacked their prices, look for alts). They only need like 4 TB at most. I made a backup samba share for myself. It’s the cheapest symbology box possible, their software to make a samba share with a quota.

I then set up a wireguard connection on an RPi, taped that to the NAS, and wireguard to the local network with a batch script. Mount the samba share and then use restic to back up my data. It works great. Restic is encrypted, I don’t have to pay for storage monthly, their electricity is cheap af, they have backups, I keep tabs on it, everyone wins.

Next step is to go the opposite way for them, but no rush on that goal, I don’t think their basement would get totaled in a fire and I don’t think their house (other than the basement) would get totaled in a flood.

If you don’t have a friend or relative to do a box-at-their-house (peeps might be enticed with reciprocal backups), restic still fits the bill. Destination is encrypted, has simple commands to check data for validity.

Rclone crypt is not good enough. Too many issues (path length limits, password “obscured” but otherwise there, file structure preserved even if names are encrypted). On a VPS I use rclone to be a pass-through for restic to backup a small amount of data to a goog drive. Works great. Just don’t fuck with the rclone crypt for major stuff.

Lastly I do use rclone crypt to upload a copy of the restic binary to the destination, as the crypt means the binary can’t be fucked with and the binary there means that is all you need to recover the data (in addition to the restic password you stored safely!).

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Look into storj and tardigrade. It's a crypto thing, but don't get scared. You back up to S3 compatible endpoints and it's super cheap (and pay with USD credit card)

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I use Proxmox PBS for all my backups. Datastore is on my file server at home. I sync the datastore daily to a little NAS at a family members house and to a super cheap storage VPS on the other side of the country. I also do a manual sync to an external drive that keep offline at home.

Any super important documents such as tax records, health related files, backup of the data volume from vaultwarden, or anything related to wills & estates get backed up as well to 2 USB thumb drives that are LUKS encrypted. I keep 1 in my go bag and another is hidden somewhere.... Thumb drives get updated once a month, or sooner if anything major changes.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I have two large (8 Bay) Synology NAS. They backup certain data between each other and replicate internally and push to Back blaze. $6/mo.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I also had been contenplating this for a while. The solution I implemented recently is:

The system itself is a RPI on NixOS. The system can be reproduced from the NixOS configuration. The NixOS configuration is stored on GitHub. Since I can reproduce the sdcard image (and full system) from the configuration I opted to not do any backup of the sdcard/system itself.

I've also opted to not use raid, as I can replace/add a RPI without too much hassle.

The real backups for me are for photos. Those are stored on a M.2 storage. A second (similar) RPI is placed at my dad's place. The rpis run tailscale and syncthing. Syncthing syncs using staggered mode (stores 1 version for the last day/week/year) and the RPI at my dad is untrusted, so the backup files are sent/stored encrypted there.

This setup hasn't run very long yet, so I won't recommend it, but it seems to check quite a lot of boxes for me. Maybe it gives some ideas. I'm also interested what alternative solutions others came up with.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I use LUKS and backup to a usb-drive that I have at home. I rsync those backups to my work once a week. Not everyone can backup to their office, but as others have said, backing up to a friend/family member's house is doable. The nice thing about rsync is that you can limit the bandwidth, so that even though it takes longer, it doesn't saturate their internet connection.

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this post was submitted on 10 May 2025
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