My home server crashed 3 times in one week and I finally set up a proper backup routine

After losing a week's worth of Plex metadata and some family photos, I bought a 4TB external drive for $89 and spent my Saturday automating nightly backups with rsync, and has anyone else found that small projects like this end up teaching you more than the big ones?

2 comments

2 Comments

kai7795d ago

Honestly, that $89 drive is a lifesaver compared to the headache of losing stuff again. I did something similar after my old setup kept dropping files - got a cheap external and set up a cron job for nightly rsync. It took me a few tries to get the flags right, but once it was running, I felt so relieved. Small projects like that really do teach you the nitty gritty, because you have to fix every little problem yourself. Now I don't even think about backups, they just happen. It's a good feeling not to panic every time the power flickers.

adams824d ago

Tbh, I dunno if it's really that serious. Like, I lost a whole folder of digital receipts once and just re-downloaded everything in like 20 minutes. @kai779, your setup sounds solid but I think people overhype the panic part. Power flickers happen, yeah, but most drives will survive a brownout unless you're unlucky. I've been running a basic manual backup once a month on a cheap USB stick and never had an issue with losing anything irreplaceable. Honestly, maybe it's because I don't have sensitive stuff - no wedding photos or business records - but a cron job feels like overkill for a home user.