[Mister_Snuggles]

For about the last year or so I've been looking for an online backup system with the following requirements:

- Off-site storage, preferably not costing too much.

- Option for on-site storage (e.g., to store a backup "in the cloud" and on my NAS)

- Keeps version history, with the associated goodies (purging old backups, etc)

- Able to run on FreeBSD and Linux, with Windows and MacOS being nice to have but not required.

- Able to back up multiple machines to one account.

I strongly suspect that my solution will involve two separate things - one to actually do the backups and another for the storage.

So far, not having looked at Duplicacy, I'm leaning strongly towards attic/borg with rsync.net for off-site storage. At first glance, Duplicacy looks like it will meet my requirements so I will have to give it a closer look before I pick a solution.

[StavrosK]

You just need Borg. Here's a post I wrote about it (as you say, Borg and rsync.net):

https://www.stavros.io/posts/holy-grail-backups/

I have posted it to maybe help a few people who want to do backups: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14507656

[Mister_Snuggles]

I currently use Attic for backups going to onto my NAS, so one plus for attic/borg is familiarity. I figure that if I'm going to go with rsync.net, I'll switch to borg since it's (as you point out) better maintained.

Are you using rsync.net's "hidden" attic/borg option? This makes the price very attractive.

You mention using "attic check" to guard against bitrot on the provider's storage. How is this in terms of bandwidth used? Does it have to transfer every byte or does it compute a checksum on the encrypted data (since rsync.net doesn't have the raw data) and just send that?

[StavrosK]

> Are you using rsync.net's "hidden" attic/borg option? This makes the price very attractive.

I am, yes, and it is quite attractive.

> You mention using "attic check" to guard against bitrot on the provider's storage. How is this in terms of bandwidth used? Does it have to transfer every byte or does it compute a checksum on the encrypted data (since rsync.net doesn't have the raw data) and just send that?

It's very bandwidth-efficient, but I have stopped doing that every day, as rsync.net told me they use ZFS and scrub their arrays regularly, so they would discover bit rot early. I only run the check once a month now.

[dom0]

(attic) borg check --repository-only does not transfer any data except informational logs. This is CRC32 only [1]. Borg 1.1 beta has borg check --verify-data, which does full decryption & full MAC + ID checks -- by downloading all data.

Generally speaking, attic has at least one data corruption bug fixed in Borg that make it unsafe to use with remote repositories unless the SSH connection is 100% stable. Attic also has another similar bug that corrupts the created archive when it encounters an I/O error in the repository.

There is a "Migrating from Attic" "sales pitch" (if you like) in the beta docs (-- switch versions in the lower left corner for stable docs): http://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/latest/faq.html#migratin...

[1] and of course checksumming and error correction of the file system, if any. Since rsync.net is ZFS the --repository-only check is a stronger than on a plain old file system with no checksums.

[avar]

I use git-annex which satisfies almost all of those requirements. I don't back up whole machines (why backup the OS when I can reinstall faster), but it otherwise has all those things.

[Mister_Snuggles]

I wasn't clear when I said "multiple machines" - I'm definitely not backing up whole machines!

It would be a case of multiple machines each backing up their /etc, /home, /var, etc to one place.

[lfowles]

Have you looked at crashplan? Although I can't say I've tried running it on FreeBSD...

[Mister_Snuggles]

I haven't looked at Crashplan in detail yet, though one of my co-workers uses it for his Macs and is happy with it.

A quick Google search gives me the feeling that it runs under FreeBSD's Linux emulation and the port seems to break occasionally. I could run it on a real Linux in a VM on FreeBSD though, so that's a potential option.

[heypete]

I use CrashPlan on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. Works great for me. Saved my bacon a few times (e.g. accidentally deleting my wedding photos, tax information, etc.). Worth checking out.

(Disclosure: I'm a paying customer of CrashPlan, but otherwise have no connection with the service.)