Need some help setting up backup solution. Brand new OMV NAS on Raspberry Pi 3B+, 32Gb microSD Card, 4TB WD RED NAS + 4TB WD RED NAS

Zitat

[restore] which involves getting on the command line), that may make rsnapshot unsuitable for beginners.

The commandline can be avoided just the way you avoid it to create the backup in your guide:
Create a sheduled task with a rsync command.
rsync -av
/srv/dev-disk-by-label-EXT402/rsnapshot/daily.0 /srv/dev-disk-by-label-EXT401/restore

another option to save space on the destination drive:
with --link-dest it will link to existing files on the source drive rather than having the files twice:
rsync -av
/srv/dev-disk-by-label-EXT402/rsnapshot/daily.0 /srv/dev-disk-by-label-EXT401/restore --link-dest /srv/dev-disk-by-label-EXT402

Then, restore is not harder than backup.
Alternatively, the Restore can be done with WinSCP.

And: there are many supportive and helpful people in the forum and elsewhere.
If the Family-Hotos are lost, even a newbie will be able to restore with that help -and if it is by paying 50$ to a pro. With the rsync option, it would need a professional data recovery company and around1000$

Greetings,
Hendrik

@henfri
I do not understand your rant against rsync. Both, rsync and rsnapshot have advantages and scenarios where they are best used. Imho rsync is excellent for data that doesn't change often (especially media files like movies, photos and music). Rsnapshot is excellent for documents cause of the versioning.

Zitat von henfri

A real live example from some days ago:
My wife cleaned up here Documents folder including the folder "Photobooks". She thought it was a duplicate and deleted it. But it was not.
She told me about this in the evening - after the weekly backup had run.

So, if I had the simple rsync solution, the content of here Documents folder would have been mirrored onto the backup drive -without the folder "Photobooks". Everything would have been gone.
But I do not have this simple solution, but a versioned backup using rsnapshot. This way I could use the backup from last week and restore from that.

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That's plain wrong. By default rsync doesn't delete in the target folder. So if you delete files in your source, they are still existing after your weekly sync in your target folder. If you want another behavior you have to knowingly set this option. Your wife would still have her photos in her backup folder.

Zitat von henfri

If the Family-Hotos are lost, even a newbie will be able to restore with that help -and if it is by paying 50$ to a pro. With the rsync option, it would need a professional data recovery company and around1000$

With rsync you have a plain copy of your source. So why would I have the need for a data recovery company for 1000$?
If you're not familiar with the console, just make your backup folder a smb share and you can handle the data from your win box. No compressed stuff or containers... a simple copy. If you're not afraid of the console cp source target and you're done.

Don't get me wrong, I'm new to OMV and for sure I don't intend to offend you or anyone else in this forum. I have to say this cause I know my english is far from perfect and always sounds somehow harsh.
Still rsync works pretty smooth for me.

Thomas

Zitat von flmaxey

Those are practical suggestions. I'm not a fan of linking the destination drive back to the source drive (or a new source), in that two disks would be doing what one did originally, but it would work.

That's not what I intended.
I intended to
1) create a new folder with the restored backup (as I do not overwrite the source)
-but this would require twice the space (one for the files that are 'still on the source drive' and one for the restored backup
2) for that reason link the files that are identical between the source and the restored backup.

That's what the above command should do.

Zitat von Stramm

@henfri
I do not understand your rant against rsync. Both, rsync and rsnapshot have advantages and scenarios where they are best used.

I have no objections against rsync. As long as it is used from within rsnapshot
I see no disadvantage of rsnapshot. If one just ignores everything but daily.0 it's identical to pure rsync.

Zitat

Imho rsync is excellent for data that doesn't change often (especially media files like movies, photos and music). Rsnapshot is excellent for documents cause of the versioning.

I disagree -sorry. Today I found that some configuration files in /etc/ had nonsense in them. The file modification date was January. I was able to restore them from my backup.
These are no documents that need versioning or similar.

Zitat

That's plain wrong. By default rsync doesn't delete in the target folder. So if you delete files in your source, they are still existing after your weekly sync in your target folder. If you want another behavior you have to knowingly set this option. Your wife would still have her photos in her backup folder.

I am referring to the command from flmaxeys manual. In that he uses the --delete command. And I agree to use it for the usecase he describes.

Zitat

With rsync you have a plain copy of your source. So why would I have the need for a data recovery company for 1000$?

Because I deleted the files in my source by mistake and because the "delayed-mirror" backup approach often suggested here would also mirror the deletion process.

Zitat

If you're not familiar with the console, just make your backup folder a smb share and you can handle the data from your win box. No compressed stuff or containers... a simple copy. If you're not afraid of the console cp source target and you're done.

No. Backups must be versioned.

Zitat

Don't get me wrong, I'm new to OMV and for sure I don't intend to offend you or anyone else in this forum.

Don't worry. You don't offend me.

Zitat

Still rsync works pretty smooth for me.

I can imagine that. But there are quite probable cases in which a plain 'delayed mirror' is just not sufficient.

I have listed two already.
Another that happened to me: Bit-Rod. One of my harddrives had a fault which damaged the file-system. Lots of files had "." characters instead of the actual data in them. I did not notice for weeks and I would have had this in my backup as well. The bad files would have overwritten the good ones.

So, that's three now. Judge your self whether this is unlikely enough. And check, whether your strategy can cope with these scenarios.
If one of the answers is 'no', I suggest to work on a versioned backup.

Greetings,
Hendrik

@henfri
If you use rsanpshot in the rsync way for media files, then it's no protection from bitrot as they do not change and you only have one copy in your backup folder. But who cares as bitrot is not a (huge) problem for media files.

Edit: Nevermind... of course rsnapshot protects from bitrot... facepalm