Reuqest: feedback on setup - backup heavy, looking for logic flaws

TrueNAS General
1

Hello and thanks in advance. This is my home setup, would like to find the blind spots that may represent risk of data loss.

Screenshot
Screenshot1359×768 49 KB

Backup plan

Periodic Snapshot Tasks 2x per day. This is sufficient for the frequency of change of significant data.

Replication Tasks

1x per day from “In tower LIVE data” to “In tower backup”
1x per day from “In tower LIVE data” to “2nd NAS offsite backup”

1x per week from “In tower LIVE data” to “3rd NAS – offline backup weekly”

Cloud backup 1x per day from “In tower LIVE data”

Thanks for looking.

2

Hi.

Love the diagram and the fact that you included UPS in there.

  1. Is your offline backup a NAS (with proper scheduled scrubs, SMART tests, snapshonts, redundancy, yada yada) or something else?

Just to be sure.

  1. How do you define “offline” backup in this setup? Not connected to the internet, different VLAN, scheduled internet shutdown, scheduled connection cut off?

Why I ask - offline backup is often done due to malware protection, but if your offline NAS is still accessible from other devices, those devices may be compromised, therefore your offline NAS too.

To keep the unit running (if it’s a NAS), I’d just schedule a script that turns off the connection to the main unit outside of backup window. It is only accessible via cable, separate VLAN, no Wi-Fi, no internet, only main unit has access to it from its VLAN and separate user is used.

In such a way, you air-gapped it as much as you can, while still keeping it running (which supports automatic backups).

You have separate UPS-es for each which is fantastic.

  1. Are your cloud backups immutable?

In case of hacked account, bad actor can delete everything from cloud. Keep that in mind and act accordingly (discard the risk or change cloud provider)

  1. Are all of your backups versioned?

In case of malware, you have potentially infected backups all over the place, but with snapshots you can revert to the state after locating infection time.

  1. Schedule data recovery procedures for each backup

You can have 50 copies of your data, but if you can’t get it back due to some errors, all 50 are useless.

5.1) Think of getting another unit for the sake of scheduled automated data recovery testing.

THIS IS VERY PARANOID BUT MY ENTERPRISE EXPERIENCE IS SCREAMING

That way you will know for sure for any breaking bug, change or dependency shenanigans.

And with checksums you will know that data is not corrupted.

  1. Honestly, I’d do one more OFFSITE OFFLINE backup for archiving the data that won’t change or changes not too often

  2. Anyway, everything I said is just a heads up for potential points to look into.

As-is, your setup is 90% better than most.

1 Like
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Thanks for taking the time to review this setup, you suggestions and your ideas.

To address some questions:

Is your offline backup a NAS (with proper scheduled scrubs, SMART tests, snapshonts, redundancy, yada yada) or something else?

-Yes, it is a TrueNAS running 25.04.2.3

How do you define “offline” backup in this setup? Not connected to the internet, different VLAN, scheduled internet shutdown, scheduled connection cut off?

-I turn it on once a week and backup the main NAS.

The suggestion of a script that turns off the connection to the main unit outside of backup window is great. Is there one in the TrueNAS community? (I dont have script writing experince).

-cloud backups are immutable

-backups are versioned with snapshots - kept for 3 weeks.

This is the most important reminder “Schedule data recovery procedures for each backup”. - I did this for the first few months then stopped as it was appearing to work. I will make this a monthly task to check that the backups are intact.

-I will see about an archive option for data that does not change much over time.

This was very helpful, thank you.

1 Like
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You do not have backups if you do not test restores…