The cloud backups all have problems due to special files, hard links, symlinks, etc.
What I want is to backup to Storj with a Replication Task so I have an exact snapshot copy of all thing ZFS. I thought that was what TrueCloud Backup did, but TrueCloud backup just uses restic.
So my question why isn’t it possible to have Storj support a replication task to a Storj server. That would be FANTASTIC.
Or am I missing something?
For “Replication Tasks”, the destination, whether on the same server, on the local network, or at a remote location over the internet, must be a ZFS target.[1]
I only know of rsync.net that provides this, but it comes at a high price point.
Unless you want to remotely store a massively large file in the form of an immutable snapshot. But this wouldn’t be convenient for recovery situations. ↩︎
Ah, yes, it was rsync.net I was thinking of. Tarsnap is something completely different.
We rent at Hetzner as targets for our ZFS replications:
(link leading directly to the storage oriented offers)
Hetzner gets you disk for around $1.70 per usable TB/mo
rsync.net costs $12/TB/mo.
So once you have over 8 TB of data, you save money using Hetzner.
rsync.net has absolutely horrible documentation for use with TrueNAS Scale (non existing). You should be able to use use a replication task which is what I want.
I love the Hetzner solution because not only do I backup my data, if my server is fried, I can change the DNS to point to my backup server and be up and running instantly.
Installation of truenas looks super simple using iDRAC to get the ISO and install it. No need for Linux system rescue at all. But the problem is that the Dell servers are super expensive.
So I went for the SX65 in Finland. To do the install, after your server is provisioned, you simply request a KVM setup and tell them you want TrueNAS loaded on a USB stick and inserted into the system. This is free for 3 hours. So then you just do a standard install from there. A bit klunky, but it works.
This way you have a true standby offsite backup of your server that you can instantly redeploy for when your house burns down to the ground.
I would not install TrueNAS because the system is connected to the Internet without a firewall. We run FreeBSD, you might prefer a Linux distribution. Install with ZFS, then use that for replication over SSH.
I use a ever expanding Servarica VPS for $10/month, and loaded zfs on it. It’s up to 8TB in storage now, increases daily. Had it for many years now. Of course, I backup to other places as well but it was so much cheaper than rsync.
Servarics uses zfs on the host level.
you get Servarica VPS for $10/month with 8TB? That’s unbeatable!!!
So that seems super cheap. If my real server every fails, then I can provision a new cloud server at Hetzner and load up Truenas and restore from that server.
This is the standard pricing.
8 TB is $26/month. Rsync.net would be $96/month.
But they have their unlimited plan which gives you slightly higher disk allocations every day. For example:
The full list of expandable plans is here:
https://clients.servarica.com/store/unlimited-storage-offer-plan
So if you have a small server, this is very affordable to be able to do Replication Task offsite backups
Yes, I’ve had it a long time and it increases every day. I don’t backup everything to that machine. I have analyzed my data and categories it into different importance levels. Only the most important data goes there. And I have space for a rsync style backup also on the same machine for certain other content that rarely changes. There is no need to backup 50% of my data. It’s re-creatable, or, work space, or, transcoding space, temp space, etc. I have other backups for other purposes. So, the 8TB as it grows will likely be used for some of the other content.
I use zfs-autobackup so I don’t have to backup everything in a pool, easy to pick and choose.
My Servarica machine is used for many purposes, not just backup, so, wanted a VPS for that. It’s also a reverse proxy for example for wireguard given I am behind cgnat.
They have specials on black friday, initial allocation was more than the paltry 2tb.
How did you modify the Debian 12 image after adding ZFS. You need to create a pool which requires a drive, and all they give you is one big partition.
Do you use LVM to create the partition for your pool? Or do you partition the disk directly using gdisk, etc? Or do you get an extra NVME added and install truenas on that, and use your entire disk as the pool? or something else. I’m really curious as to how you solved this!
I decided to go with the salamander plan which has two disks, so it’s super clean.
Have you considered using the integrated cloud backup to Storj? I use this myself personally and find it very good and affordable. As much as I love TrueNAS and ZFS it also ticks the box of having your data on another platform.
It’s not possible to use Storj directly for ZFS replication tasks because Storj isn’t designed for handling file systems like ZFS, which involve special files, symlinks, and snapshots. ZFS replication requires block-level operations that Storj doesn’t support.
You could use restic (like TrueCloud Backup does) for file-based backups, but for true ZFS replication, you’d need a storage solution that understands ZFS-specific features, like other ZFS systems or specialized cloud providers (e.g., Backblaze B2, rsync.net) that support ZFS replication.
When installing Debian with ZFS I used these instructions originally:
but now have switched to using ZFSBootMenu, which delivers a much more streamlined experience:
https://docs.zfsbootmenu.org/en/v2.3.x/guides/debian/bookworm-uefi.html
Not quite sure if that is applicable to your situation. You do generally create your zpool inside GPT partitions, yes.
Wow. Thank you. That is highly valuable.That saves a huge amount of time.
You can do custom installs, so, you can setup the machine however you want from the start. They give you a console to setup the machine with. Do not use LVM, not needed. I have 4 drives of 2TB now, it expands each drive up to 2tb. So, you can use them however you want in pools, realizing that the underlying host storage is zfs.
