Backup solution for Home

[zwf]

Hello All,

With the story we all know about crashplan ..... (i will not elaborate on that)!! but i have to admit it was doing exactly what i want :( for cheap
I am looking since few month a good replacement solution.
My fleet is :

• NAS for Backup
  • Freenas 11.2
• Client (about 16 total):
  • MAC
  • Windows
  • Mobile (IOS,Android)
  • Linux

My Goal is to have :
All client Backup to the NAS (for fast/easy restore/recovery etc)
Backup the NAS to Cloud or/and to FAmily NAS in other town

I have tried many software so far and the main issue is to found a software who can backup all client at a reasonnable price...and have the same software
For the backup to external i have stop with Duplicati 2 who do a good job as of now
For the client it is an other story :)
I have tried a lot and finally stop with UrBackup with some success until last 2 month or so where i upgrade to Mojave and UrBackup hit a wall.
https://forums.urbackup.org/t/possi...s-access-denied-causes-backup-to-fail/6031/37

So my question what you guru are using ?
thanks

 

[Harmless Drudge]

Take a look at borgbackup or restic (or both! -- prefer redundant backups). They're block level deduplicating backups. Probably an idea to have a separate repository for each of your client groups: Mac, Windows, Linux. Can't advise on Android. You'll have a lot of duplicated content within these. This will save you massive amounts of storage both locally and in the cloud.

 

[zwf]

I will read about Borg and restic.... they was not part of my testing because of the "No GUI/Web inerface)
i will manage the back at home but everbody need to be able restore / add etc... easily ...
I am coming from *nix world so command line is fine for me but not for everybody.

 

[Harmless Drudge]

I use BackInTime, Borg and Timeshift on Linux machines (the latter is functionally equivalent to a Windows Restore; helps roll back bad updates). BackInTime is like Apple's Timevault with a UI that makes it easy to restore files and directories. It's not so good for a bare metal restore and while it does deduplicate files between backups it doesn't across machines, nor does it do any compression or encryption. Borg backups can be mounted as drives and so differences can be analysed with comparison tools very easily (I use Beyond Compare). Restic is similar but allows for more cloud-hosted options AFAIK. I use a script to run Borg and manage the retentions; this can be automated of course with a cron job. It probably wouldn't be a huge job to knock up some UI for restores either using a bash shell script or something like Python.

Haven't checked it lately for updates but you can find some useful info here backup software overview. You can, of course, mix things up with a GUI for users to restore with and a redundant backup for tech staff to do any disaster recoveries.

 

[Heracles]

Hey ZWF,

My solution is even simpler than that : No software at all

Here, I put everything in my personal cloud built with Nextcloud. All files, contacts, calendars, pictures, audio, videos, password managers, ... Everything is in my cloud. No more data in any computer, tablet, smartphone or anything else. I have a site-to-site VPN with a member of my family and everything is replicated there to a second FreeNAS using zfs replication.

FreeNAS and Nextcloud can both connect to external storage providers. If your needs are limited, fews GB from few providers may be enough. Start with 15G of free Google Drive storage.

Before ending up that way, I looked at Bacula but never used it...

Good luck,

 

[zwf]

NextCloud is a Sync ? like Owncloud ?
correct ?

 

[Heracles]

Hi ZWF,

Nextcloud is a fork from Owncloud and since the fork, it received more development than Owncloud. Owncloud is not dead yet, but as for me, Nextcloud is already the clear winner.

There are sync clients for desktop and mobile platforms. Nextcloud is also compatible with generic interfaces like Webdav, Caldav and CardDav. As such, a software like PDF Expert from Readdle on mobile platform can reach Nextcloud natively and directly over this generic channel, without the need for a specialized client.

As I said, I do not have any data in any of my devices since I built my cloud. Once, when trying to update my iPad, I ended up bricking it. No worry and no data loss. This is literally putting all your eggs in the same basket, so you have to be very sure of that basket. That's why FreeNAS is the backend, deployed with all the best practices, offsite replication, I fully documented the setup, practiced and completed many recoveries from snapshots and more.

I really enjoy my setup now

 

[zwf]

I will test Nextcloud...
M point is a sync is not a backup :( ...

 

[Heracles]

Hi again zwf,

Yes, your point is that Nextcloud sync the data instead of being a backup software. My point is that once you have such a complete centralisation of your data, you don't need to backup the end points anymore. Re-install the vanilla OS, re-download the softwares from Internet and in all cases, a fresh install every now and then is always a good thing. The one thing that must be backed up in any system are the data, but once in such a cloud, they are backed up by the cloud itself.

Nextcloud itself offers both versioning and undelete. On top of that, FreeNAS can do snapshots for extra redundancy and to put these data out of reach of both users and the Nextcloud frontend, so no single logical incident can loose you your data. Should you implement offsite ZFS replication like I did, it will complete the solution in such a way that no single physical incident can loose you your data.

Once your data are fully protected against any single logical incident and any single physical incident, I think you can say Mission Accomplished...

 

[zwf]

Nextcloud itself offers both versioning and undelete.

interesting.... this change lot of things....
owencloud did not have that if i remember .... will check Nextcloud

 

[William Bravin]

Hello all

I am not very literate when it comes to backups, snapshots or replication. Although I understand the need for a backup I fail to understand the benefit of such solution over a simple copy and paste solution to a second server.

my limited knowledge brought me to have a second freenas server with the same storage and i just copy from server a to server b once a week.
In your opinion am i missing something?

Thank you for educating and guiding me

 

[LaserAllan]

I used to use Crashplan, nowadays I use Gsuite as a backup cold backup solution while doing periodic snapshots to a secondary freenas box every 15 minutes.

 

[phomchick]

Check out Veeam backup client for Windows. It supports bare metal restore, a must have feature.

 

[Heracles]

Hey William,

When talking about backups, try to apply the 3-copies rule. That rule says that every data should exist in 3 copies. The challenge here is to recognize what is a copy and what is not.

Snapshots are not a copy. They are in the same system, hosted in the same OS, the same drives, the same FS, ... as the instance the snapshot was taken from.

Here, my first copy is sync to my desktop client using the Nextcloud agent.
Second copy is on my main FreeNAS, protected by ZFS and snapshots.
My third copy is sent to a second FreeNAS using ZFS replication.

The important thing is : that backup FreeNAS is hundreds of KM away from the main one. As such, no single physical incident can take both servers down. If both of your servers are in the same area, a single incident like fire can destroy both of them at once.

What is not ideal in my setup is that none of my copies is fully offline. As such, a logical incident deep in my network can damage everything. Despite this, I consider that my network is properly secured for such an incident to be excluded. Everything is monitored by Q-Radar, there is no direct network access to FreeNAS in any way, all authentication is very strong, all systems are hardened and patched, etc.

So in your case, your two FreeNAS can count as 2 copies, even more if they are on separate sites. Should they be on the same site, consider you still have 2 copies for protecting against some threats, but only one for some others.

Hope this help you to understand hoe to do better backups,

 

[William Bravin]

Hello @Heracles

you gave me a good idea.I have a buffalo linkstation that I could put in a separate apartment. This would mean Having 2 fully redundant freenas server and the buffalo as a remote server that i control.

Because i only have a minimal of documents to protect rigorously then i have my media files I could do a copy and paste to bothe the buffalo and the freenas on a weekly basis

Once again thank you for your input