Best way to backup a synchronized folder to a remote backup server

[arqeco (Marcio)]

Hello friends,

The scenario is a small engineering firm with some PCs and a local server, all running syncthing, of course including the local server.

The need is for a remote backup solution for the synchronized folder. A remote server, in another city, is already available to store the backups.

Some possibilities:

1. Using syncthing also in the remote server. The PCs and both servers will always be synchronized. Periodically the remote server backups the synchronized folder using rsync snapshot or borg or restic or other software.

2. Not using syncthing in the remote server. Periodically, the local server opens an ssh connection with the remote server, and does a remote backup using rsync snapshot or borg or restic or other software.

Reading some posts in this forum I became worried about backuping a folder while it is being synchronized by syncthing. I don’t know what kind of problems may arise from this, but this is one of the reasons for this post.

What option should I take? 1 or 2? Any other solution?

What backup software is the more appropriate to work along with Syncthing in this case? Rsync snapshots? Borg? Restic? Any other?

Thank you,

Greetings,

Marcio

[Project] Syncthing as backup solution

[Project] Syncthing as backup solution

Hi, nice setup. Since you are considering that as the backup solution how do you perform the regular data checks on the backup machines ? (It happened to me several times, that the backup was corrupted - esp. in the days of floppy disks Q2: Among the photo groups there is the saying to apply 1-2-3 approach to files (1 orig. photo, 2 backup solutions kinds / 2 geographical places, 3 copies [orig, backup 1, backup 2]) The reason for 2 backup solutions is to avoid being screwed up by 1 wa…

Using ST in a backup scenario

Using ST in a backup scenario

That filesystem snapshot thing (zfs): What is that? Does it run on Linux, on Windows? Just asking because that is what I’m doing here, taking snapshots and storing them elsewhere. Perhaps I could my life make even easier than with my admittedly somewhat complicated approach.

Syncthing server client and backup strategy with rsnapshot

Syncthing server client and backup strategy with rsnapshot

Hi, (dont know if this is interesting for someone, but maybe an answer to the question how syncthing can be used to make backups) How I use syncthing… Objective: Multiple devices should have access to the same files, even if they are not online Easy backup of these files with versioning Solution in the case you have a server: Syncthing + rsnapshot Server runs syncthing All devices run syncthing Syncthing is used to do exactly what it is supposed to, syncing the files across…

[AudriusButkevicius]

Both #1 and #2 suffer from the same fear “backuping a folder while it is being synchronized by syncthing”. Yet “backuping a folder while it is being synchronized by syncthing” is not actually a problem as it syncs to a temporary file, and does an atomic swap afterwards, so both #1 and #2 should work.

Syncthing doesn’t care what backup software you use, so you should pick whatever you feel is best for you.

[DavidSte (David)]

I’ve been using option #3 - run syncthing on the remote note (for a usable replica), but also run free Crashplan application on both nodes to backup the local syncthing folder to a remote node, mainly because it does local dedeupe and compression, before encrypting and sending over the internet. Crashplan does incremental backups forever, so there is full recovery history and I turn off versioning in Syncthing.

Now that Crashplan is abandoning the home market, I’m looking at option #4 URBackup which can do the incremental backups locally but as it doesn’t encrypt them I’ll probably use Syncthing to send them to the remote node. URBackup can also take images as well as file backups, which can facilitate a bare metal restore in a remote site.