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What backup service do you use?
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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Somehow "took me a while to wrap my head around it" doesn't make me feel comfortable. Apart from git-annex themselves saying that they aren't a backup system and just a building block to maybe create one, a backup system should imho be dead simple sind easy to understand.
Once you actually start using it it is dead simple and integrates extremely well with stuff you (might) already do.
I have a Git repo which contains my dotfiles + every “large” (annexed) file I want to back up under my home directory.
Git annex automatically tracks where all annexed files are, how many copies there are on various repos, etc.
I add and modify files using mostly standard git commands.
It supports pretty much anything as a “remote”.
It’s extremely simple to restore backups locally or remotely.
Basically Git annex is the Git of backup solutions IME, allowing you extreme flexibility to do exactly what you want, provided you take the time to learn how to do what you want.
Features that are important to me are things like an easy overview of all backup jobs (ideal via a web UI), snapshots going back every day for a week and after that every month. Backup to providers like Backblaze or AWS and the ability to browse these backups and individual snapshots.
I'd assume that you can build all of this with git annex in some way. But I really want something that works out of the box. E.g. install the backup software give it some things to backup and an B2 bucket and then go.
What I'm curious about is that the git-annex site explicitly days that they aren't a backup system, but you describe it as such.
I don’t care about stuff working OOTB - half the fun is messing around with things IMO.
I also don’t care about web UIs and similar features (I always got the impression from selfhosting communities that this is considered important but I never really understood why - I don’t spend all day staring at statistics, and when I need some info I can get it through the terminal usually).
Also, first sentence on Git Annex’s website:
Not sure why you’re saying it’s not a backup solution.
Efit: I guess the “what git-annex is not” page says this.
To quote a comment by the creator on the same page:
So basically he says this just so people won’t yell at him when they fail to use it as a backup solution correctly.
I generally agree. Backups for me are just something I don't want to tinker with. It's important to me that they work OOTB, are easy to grasp and I have a good overview.
The web interface is important to me because it gives me that overview from any device I'm currently using without needing to type anything into a terminal. The OOTB is important to me since I want to be able to easily set this all up again even without access to my Ansible setup or previous configuration.
To each their own. I'm not saying your way of doing this is wrong. It's just not for me. This is just my reasoning / preferences. It's also the reason something like borg wasn't my chosen solution, even though it's generally considered great.
I understand your position, though I always have access to a terminal pretty much so I still don’t see the point of a web UI.
Though I realize I’m in the minority here.