Do you backup your important data to any cloud storage ? Which one?

That’s a really interesting idea. I hadn’t even thought to do such a thing!

Which program do you use for encrypting?

It depends what the source data is.

borg can create encrypted backups. Small important data can be encrypted with gpg. rclone, which I use to sync my data to the cloud can also encrypt the data as it syncs.

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Installed NextCloud on my Website, incl. calendar and contact sync which are important data, plays out fine for sync between my desktops and degoogled android phone…cloud file sync is also possible however not using it yet

I’m a bit cheap :smiley:

Dropbox and Google Drive. Just in case either one of those services suddenly disappears or delete my data.

Every device in the house has FileVault or Bitlocker.

One criteria I lack is that I have no ability on versioning restore. It is either the latest version or none for files.

One way to solve that problem is to use a backup program locally that provides version control and then sync those files to the cloud. For example, you could use borg to create a local backup and then sync the borg backup files to the cloud. Borg supports both encryption and deduplication. Additionally, it stores it’s files in a way that can be efficiently cloud synced.

@dalto
Suppose I have 100 jpg files on my hard drive & I keep editing some of them regularly & I use Grsync to back them up to a USB drive. Now suppose 5 files becomes corrupted. Since its not possible to check the integrity of each file before running rsync I just follow my usual backup routine. So don’t you think rsync will just blindly replace a good file with a corrupted one ? Is versioned backups supposed to solve this exact issue ?

Yea I get what you mean. Something like Volume Shadow Copy for windows, but for Linux instead. Perhaps a Synology NAS which does local versioning and just mount from OS. I don’t mind spending “one-off” money but I hate paying for things recurring monthly i.e. subscriptions.

I used to sell Datto Siri and Datto NAS and they are more costly but great for backup and versioning locally and offsite. Can’t buy direct as channel only.

But then again I don’t keep much data apart from identity document scans, property assets scans, car documents, tax documents, some family photos etc. I wouldn’t say I am heavy user.

Yes, it will. I would argue that what you have is not really a backup but a replica.

It solves that issue and also allows you to get old versions back for reasons other than corruption.

Alternatively, borg is free…

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@dalto
Okay one last thing. I backup my KeePassXC database to Mega. I haven’t encrypted this particular file coz its already encrypted by default with a password & a key. As soon as I add a new entry to the database I see activity on the Mega’s tray icon indicating its updating the file to the new version. Now if the KeePassXC database file which is on my SSD becomes corrupt won’t Mega just upload the corrupted file ? What can I do to avoid this ? My KeePassXC database file is very important to me. Without it I will be completely locked out. I wont be able access even this forum for example.

Either use a service which provides version retention or use a separate backup program to back it up.

If your filesystem is btrfs, take regular snapshots.

I dont want to register to a new service but since the KeepassXC database file is so small I dont mind keeping 1000 copies of it. Which backup program do you recommend ? A GUI will help a lot.

All my partitions are EXT4.

vorta, it is a gui for borg.

I will install, try to learn it & report back. Thanks.

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I am using 2 Tb storage (lifetime account) with pCloud, and the server based in Switzerland. Essentially to have a backup of my photos (I am photographer). At the moment I have about 1 Tb of used space. For the rest of my backups (Timeshift for snapshots, Borg for data) I use SSD local drives.

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I am using several cloud providers but always the same approach:

  1. Mount cloud storage via rclone
  2. Create encrypted backups with Borg
  3. Unmount

And given that I am paranoid when it comes to backups (I have seen companies go out of business because they never bothered testing their backup routine), I also copy the remote repositories of my clients to my local machine so I can easily test the backups and quickly retrieve files if necessary. Works really well with Borg.

I backup all my data to various external hard drives. Not stupid enough to trust anything on the interwebz.

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@dalto
I have installed Vorta but it seems that its designed to upload/backup files to a cloud service. I am looking for a tool similar to Grsync. I choose the source then I choose the destination & hit go & the backup process starts. Only feature that Grsync doesn’t offer is versioning. I want same style of versioning that the system restore tool Timeshift offers. If you create multiple snapshots using Timeshift it lists them by data of creation.

Is there a backup tool like that ?

Err…it shouldn’t only work with cloud targets. Let me install it and take a look.

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So, I just tested in a random VM I had open and I wasn’t forced to create a remote backup.

You need to initialize a repo that stores the backup. You can point the repo to any destination you want.

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The sources tab shows what you want to backup:
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You can schedule backups:
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Alternatively, if you would prefer to do it manually you can just hit the start backup button.

Once you have backups you can see them in the list:
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