I think this summarises all the other answers here

Backups… with LVM, if you’re trying to do a full system backup (ie with clonezilla, etc) then you have to backup the whole thing - you can’t backup just 1 drive.

I have a media server with 2x 2TB HDDs and 1x SSD in a LVM, split into Music, Video, TV… and the OS … and I can backup the individual files of course, but I can’t backup just the OS drive.

btrfs didn’t exist when I created it, but I use it on my NAS and it’s great.

I’ll be rebuilding my media server one day and change LVM to btrfs.

Hmm, ok, I’d not thought of the remote troubleshooting part.

The NAS is at a family member’s home, so the troubleshooting might come up in the future.

Thanks

Yeah, my default go to is a site-to-site OpenVPN tunnel, but thought I’d look around at what the kool kidz are doing these days. Thanks.

Yeah, those are for the layer on top of a secure network.

My use case is less about the backup software, more about the network.

Diode - as far as I can make out from their site - provides both storage and networking, but I’m not interested in their storage (as I don’t understand where it is) - this is about getting data to my offsite NAS, securely.

Agreed - Diode caught my eye as an alternative to a site-to-site VPN as I have 2x NAS at different locations (+ Backblaze, which I’ll be moving away from)

So, it’s less about the destination, more about the network…

But it feels like the website’s got more time invested in it, than the actual tech solution.

Yeah, that was kinda my thoughts too.

Hmm, didn’t know about this… I was just using dd to see if the size was about right.

Thanks

I’m glad these things happen… it keeps everyone aware that cloud is fragile and Plan B should be considered for mission critical tasks.

I’m also hoping that it will improve cloud resiliency because a complete / partial restart of cloud systems needs a whole different approach than maintaining a running system.

Agreed, could be static HTML and a GIF.

Thanks, I won’t click that link.

Be prepared to change your mind…

That first install of proxmox / nextcloud / whatever, will be removed and you will setup something else - this is a good thing.

So, you’ll probably want to get onsite backups sorted early… even if that’s just cloning to an external drive first.

IMHO don’t consider a NAS as your server - keep them separate. A cheap ebay PC with a couple of drives is fine.

And, if you’re considering home automation you will want a UPS

I don’t have one (because of that point), so I don’t know…

Presumably the app and doorbell are hardcoded to go to an AWS URL (so it’s “easier” for consumers), but in theory the data’s all on your wifi.

Yeah, was reading about it here too

https://www.techradar.com/news/live/amazon-web-services-alexa-ring-snapchat-fortnite-down-october-2025

Ring doorbells, Alexa, ahh… the joys of selfhosting.

And when you ping that IP address back, what happens?

Can you trace it?

Maybe setup wireshark and record what happens at that time of night…

I run it baremetal, the photos / videos are all on a separate location (so are “Externsl Libraries” in Immich) and are backed up…

As far as the Immich application itself, I’m not currently backing up anything as I’ve been trialing it… but, I’ll aim to backup any configurations, but I’m thinking to maybe ignore any database - it can just relearn everything if I need to do a restore… depends how big that DB is…

Check out https://www.servethehome.com/

They (just him?) did a whole load of SFF / 1 Litre reviews a while ago - it’s probably better (easier) to watch his youtube channel as then you actually get to see what he’s talking about.

He also covers some of those “brandnames” and addresses some differences when they ordered identical devices and compared what was received.

Depending on what your future plans are, some of the newer boxes are multi-NIC multi-Gb devices so you might find something “better” there.

Nice breakdown

+1 for including the word “behoove” in your blog

+1 for XMPP

I’m also hoping to self-host Prosidy (when I get a spare evening / weekend), so if you could post your notes that would be good.

There are some good notes on the Arch Wiki if that helps

Well, it depends on the app & how it’s installed.

Most bare-metal installed apps are in /etc/ or ~/.config/… maybe under /opt/ or /usr/ - just copying those files out on a regular basis is usually good enough.

Might be a little more tricky if you’re trying to backup a database / live files, but those apps usually have some documentation about backups.

If it’s a container or flatpak, etc. then it’s probably somewhere obscure.

Not really.

I keep my data backups (docs, photos, etc) separate from the OS backups.

So, depending on what you’re using to do the backup, often they can just simulate a restore and just check the backup’s not corrupted. Not really a restore, but at least you know it’s not trash.

If you’ve backed up your data with a simple copy / sync (ie not a “backup” program), then you can restore your data somewhere else (maybe even jist a part of it) and do a compare.

But, yeah, if you’re restoring the OS, then it might be ok restoring it in a VM to check it…

I’m slowly moving towards no OS backups and using Ansible to be able to recreate the system(s) from scratch… of course I need to backup the ansible files too 😉