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What do you use for automated backups when the host's tool fails?

Reviews by Carl 25 replies 2.9K views
Carl

Member OP

Rack & Stack

13 #1

Contabo's "guaranteed" backup tool just corrupted my data twice in three months. First time they said "rare hardware fault." Second time, silence. I'm done trusting their panel.

I run a Dell R630, dual E5-2680v4, 128GB DDR4, 4x 960GB SATA SSDs in RAID10. Pulls 185W idle, 2U. I need something that just works without babysitting.

Currently testing rsync over wireguard to a cold box at a friend's colo. 500 miles away, different power grid. Script runs at 04:00, finishes in 22 minutes for 340GB.

What's your setup? Looking for battle-tested configs, not "have you opened a ticket."

Hard requirements: encrypted in transit and at rest, verifiable (I restore-test quarterly), under 30 min for ~400GB incremental.

visit twice: install and decom
TI

Member

2 #2

In server I use rclone to backup to Vultr cold storage, no? Little script runs in container with cron, very nice

Szerwer has 64GB RAM, enough for rclone buffer

config tip: use --fast-list and --transfers=16, much more fast than default

HeadRich

Member

128GB or nothing

#3

Your rclone buffer eats resident set. My backup node has 512GB DDR4-3200, EPYC 7443P. rclone with --buffer-size 1G barely registers. Budget hardware will choke on that config.

rsync is fine if you control both ends. But how much RAM on the target? zfs recv needs arc. My target has 256GB, arc capped at 128G. Restores in minutes, not hours.

pam_blik

Member

adblock evangelist

#4
Carl said:
I need something that just works without babysitting.

rsync + zfs snapshots here too but I run it on a TINY box, 8GB RAM, Celeron J4125

Works fine for 200GB, just slow no need to humblebrag about EPYC for home stuff

WARNING though: check your host TOS before pushing to external storage some ban "excessive egress" and will SUSPEND without warning learned that the HARD way with Hetzner last year — https://www.hetzner.com/cloud

SamAlvi

Member

Self-Host Everything

#5

I run MinIO in docker compose on a repurposed ThinkCentre M90q at my parents' house. WireGuard tunnel back to main box. Reverse proxy with Traefik, Let's Encrypt automated. Compose file is 47 lines including healthchecks.

My stack:
- Restic for deduplication
- MinIO S3-compatible target
- rclone for off-off-site mirror to GreenCloudVPS (the one thing I don't self-host, geographic redundancy)

Restic verify runs weekly. Failed twice in two years, both times my fault (changed SSH key, forgot to update cron). Docker compose makes it trivial to reproduce anywhere.

my cloud. my rules. my 3AM alerts.
CarlosBilby

Member

6 #6

He mano my VPS it crashed three times trying rsync, kkkkk

Very small RAM, 1GB only, caramba! Host is RackNerd, very cheap

I change to rclone with little memory, now it works more fast, nossa! But I not test restore yet, hehe

Mano you have script for check if backup ok? I need this

pablo

Member

#7

How much RAM on the cold box?

declarative or death
KI

Member

#8

Same, Contabo ghosted me after a restore failed

Izmir

Member

#9

What kernel is the R630 running?

Carl

Member OP

Rack & Stack

#10
pablo said:
How much RAM on the cold box?

32GB. Supermicro X10SLM-F, E3-1230v5, 2x 4TB WD Red Plus in mirror. Runs Debian 12 with ZFS on root. ARC capped at 16G, never seen pressure.

Izmir said:
What kernel is the R630 running?

6.1.0-23-amd64 from backports. IDRAC 8 enterprise, firmware 2.83.00.00. Why do you ask?

visit twice: install and decom

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