Confused about TrueCloud Backup

TrueNAS General
1

I’m a bit confused as to how the TrueCloud Backup feature is supposed to work.
I created a trial account at Storj, created an access key+secret and set up a “TrueCloud Backup task” in TrueNAS. I selected my folder and inserted the keys and the task was set up successfully:

Path: /mnt/data/test
Credentials: Storj
Bucket: test
Folder: testfolder
Keep Last: 1
Transfer Setting: Default

The task is running successfully.
When I go to Storj I can see the “test” bucket, it also contains the “testfolder” folder, but “testfolder” does not contain my files, but contains the following:

data (directory)
index (directory)
keys (directory)
snapshots (directory)
config (file)

I figured there might be some metadata and my actual files would reside in “data”, but I can’t find my files there either.

So where are my files?

2

This is a bit old so not sure if you’ve already found your answer, but I’ll chime in with my limited understanding in case it is useful to you.

From what I understand TrueCloud Backup stores data in storj using “Snapshots”. This is different than a traditional rsync clone of the data you might get with a cloud sync task.

You can search through the documentation for more info on what snapshots are, but the TLDR of it is this:

  • Snapshot data is stored in blocks. If you look in the “data” folder you mentioned, you’ll find a ton of small files. These contain your data, just in an abstracted manner.
  • This allows the backup to both be compressed, reducing the needed cloud storage, and encrypted using the password provided in TrueNAS.
  • The snapshot system also allows for very efficient file versioning, only storing what changed about a file between snapshots as opposed to multiple full copies of the file (not important if you have “Keep Last” set to 1)

Once again, this is just my limited understanding. I’m sure the documentation has more info.

3

To add, TrueCloud Backup uses restic under the hood. You can use restic to access your backups without TrueNAS if necessary.

Make sure you save a copy of your encryption key, and your TrueNAS configuration.

4

What you are seeing is correct. The Truecloud backup uses Restic under the hood to do the backup. All the files are encrypted on the StorJ server using the keys you setup. The backup job also password protects the restore with the password you set for the backup job.
In the data folder you should see a series of folders and within the encrypted file blocks. The file blocks are based on the size of the Transfer setting chosen for the backup in Truenas.
You can restore some or all of a backup from the Truenas GUI by opening the full TrueCloud Backup Tasks page, selecting the job and select the restore on the sidebar and entering the password for restore.
Do not lose your StorJ keys and do not lose your restore password. Keep them in a safe place off of the server.