Just to add to this, if you have periodic snapshots on the server side, this does solve the problem. And it simplifies things a lot.
Comment on Backup/Server Options - is Syncthing / Nextcloud really the go?
Dave@lemmy.nz 1 week ago
Remember sync isn’t a good backup. You’re thinking of loss of drives but if this is important data you need to also consider mistakes.
If you accidentally delete files you shouldn’t, you don’t want this deletion to sync to all your copies so it’s gone for good and the backup doesn’t help.
Personally I use borgmatic to keep incremental, deduplicated backups. Then I can go back to previous states.
If you install nextcloud all in one, it comes with a backup solution (also borg based). Then devices don’t need a copy of every file. But you’ll want your server to have a backup drive for this.
I then sync my borg backup to a backblaze b2 bucket for offsite, encrypted backup using rclone. That then meets the 3 2 1 backup plan.
I notice you mention Jellyfin. I don’t back up my Jellyfin media, the cloud storage for that could get very expensive and I could get it again if I needed it.
Creat@discuss.tchncs.de 1 week ago
Dave@lemmy.nz 1 week ago
Yes, if you go with something like syncthing, have it also sync to a server where you run borg backup so you get the incremental backup.
merde@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
edit folder > ignore delete
and you don’t have to worry about syncthing deleting your backup
aksdb@lemmy.world 1 week ago
That, on the other hand, is only viable, if you are sure, data never needs to expire. Dedicated backup solutions work with retention policies.
Dave@lemmy.nz 1 week ago
Yip you can do that but then it’s messy! And what if you overwrite a file by accident?
And if you do lose your hard drive then you have a weird state to restore from.
I’d much prefer the ability to restore to a point in time that comes with something like borg.
merde@sh.itjust.works 6 days ago
you can activate one of the options in the “file versioning” to keep deleted files, up to x versions and however long you want
are you writing about losing the backUp drive?
Dave@lemmy.nz 6 days ago
I think versioning is the better option.
No, losing your main version. Imagine you have a computer with syncthing and a server where it syncs to. If you chose no deletions, then it will sync all files to the server but all the stuff you deleted (draft documents, random files, photos from that time your kid held the camera button on your phone down and took 3000 photos in 30 seconds) will be deleted from your computer but still there on your server.
When you computer gets struck by lightning and everything is destroyed but the server is fine, now you have to re-sort out all your files because all the stuff you deleted is still on the server version.
Your suggestion of enabling the option to keep previous versions is probably cleaner. Personally I prefer to keep previous versions and deduplicate to save space.