How to backup nextcloud on truenas on my gaming pc, manually

TrueNAS General
1

asking here, because didnt get any reply in other category, i chose the wrong category.

my post was:
"I am soo sorry to ask this question, i know there are billions of posts about this, but none of them gave clear answer and instructions.
I am a newbie with this server and all, I have no knowledge, I follow tutorials and learn and understand through them.
I had a old pc, i threw some 3tb hard drives in it installed truenas core and nextcloud.
This serves as my main storage, for files and media for me and my family.

I want to know how you guys backup your data? do you have another machine with truenas thas is the backup of the first one? is so, please guide me how is it done?

i dont wanna backup the data to some cloud and pay for the storage, that kills the whole purpose of this.

Thank you"

got a reply from @ NugentS:
No - you should use a different computer with different drives.

Your 3*3TB in Z1 is OK. You need to keep the RAIDZ so that if an error occurs on a disk then ZFS has the ability to recover

You also require (ideally more than 1) backup. Good practise says use the 3-2-1 principle.

3 Copies of Data
2 on different media / systems
1 offsite

My final question:
“Ok
So i am thinking I will use a drive in my gaming pc to backup everything from nextcloud, the data from all the users and settings and everything.
Can you tell me how can I do that?, i am ok doing it manually because I am not gonna leave my pc on all the time, i use it everyday…
So is there a way to setup up this copying thing, and initiate it whenever i want with a click? Like running a task or something…”

My truenas doesnt have anything in it, it has nextcloud that stores everything, so idc if i backup everything in truenas or everything in nexcloud(from all users). thank you

2

I have find what i think is the better solution for me, for not create 2 Nas or pay for Cloud, maybe can help u a little:

  • i have create a pool with a striped disk, where every night the main pool is replicated with Snapshot/replication task. This Is bigger enough for all the data
  • i have a bunch of hard drives that i can’t use in zfs (2.5" SMR disk), but they are perfect for create Copy of dataset via SMB

If your storage file are all on nextCloud, u could also think to made some replication task via USB - atracching and detaching a cmr disk) for launch the replication task and keeping ur copy safe

3

Just be aware of the risks☝️

Old gaming hardware
Old HDs ?
RAIDZ1 with old HDs :scream:

“Backup” on another old system…

Believe me, its not nice to loose 2 years of baby pictures because of old hardware and a bad backup strategy. :face_with_peeking_eye:

4

thanx for your reply, but I was wandering if i can have all that data (the snapshot; basically everyhting from my sever) to my current gaming pc where i have an empty 2tb drive(which is good for now because my nextcloud data is just 200gb). so can i do this over the internet to backup up my server to my pc hdd?

1 more question is snapshot the right thing in this case? I want 1:1 data backup u know? like if everything from the server crashes/ burns even, I will still have my pure data on my hdd, that i can simple access anytime…

5

My understanding here is that you’d like to add a drive to your Windows (client) machine to act as backup for the Nextcloud application on your TrueNAS machine? There’s nothing inherently wrong with doing this, it’s just a little unconventional and from an implementation standpoint nothing super solid is coming to mind.

You could probably script this and have a scheduled task set up for whenever you log on. Maybe using rclone to do a differential backup of the ix-applications folder downloaded via SFTP from TrueNAS to your machine. There isn’t really a “good” solution that I can think of but that would technically work.

As long as the data you’re storing isn’t majorly critical I don’t have a massive issue with the 3-Wide RAIDZ1 setup, you’re covered for a single disk failure, but you also run the risk of losing the entire pool if more than one drive fails or a second drive fails during the replacement process. Putting in a fourth disk and having it configured as RAIDZ2 would be considerably safer, or if you are hesitant to rebuild the pool, at least as a hot spare (or a cold, immediately available spare).

If you haven’t already, set up SMART test tasks. Where this is old hardware, I’d be running a short SMART test daily, and a long SMART test once every three days. I’d also recommend scheduling a scrub task for once every two weeks, you don’t want to be caught off guard by missing any early indicators of disk failure.

1 Like
6

thanx for your reply,
right now i only have nextcloud on my truenas, lets say in future I install home assistant and set it up. and god forbid all my drives die or I loose all the data in truenas. Can I copy everthing from my personal PC drive and simply paste in new truenas storage drives and everything works? if I use rclone?

sorry if this is a stupid thing to ask, I am new and i dont know shit, and i dont wanna go through hard processes in case of disk failure or something.

if this rcloning on my personal pc is stupid, can you tell me a full proof backup plan that I can do? raid takes time to rebuild the data.
so is there a quicker more convienient way? like make another truenas with the extra 2tb drive i have and backup everything in it.
I dont want to spend money on another 4tb drive, coz I am using truenas for my personal storage, i am maybe hardly gonna fill up 2tb max… its just my media pics and all and maybe home assistant in future (VM).

7

It seems that the Windows Backup software called “Duplicati” allows you to backup data from a Nextcloud instance locally.

Mabe give this a try.

1 Like
8

thanx @Farout , yesterday I tried googling n all but CHATGPT IS OP, it helped me rsync tha server data to me pc, there were some hurdles took couple of hours but got it to work,
for now i am good but I just wanted to know if there is another way you recommend keeping these specifications in mind…