I dumped CrashPlan and moved to HashBackup


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I have been using CrashPlan for many years until recently. When they changed the security model of the software that required changing and settings keys to access a headless system I started giving up. I especially gave up when CrashPlan couldn't get the billing right on my account and they dumped all of my data. Between having constant struggles with the headless config and needing to re-enter my credit card data every month, I quit. I started looking for other options.

 

Today I started using HashBackup. It's a slick unix/linux program that can write encrypted backups out to a healthy list of cloud providers (B2, Glacier, S3, etc). It runs on unRAID without having to install any dependencies. I encountered a bug backing up to Glacier, emailed the developer, and he had it fixed within a few hours.

 

Anyway, if you're looking for a backup software, this is well worth your time. The documentation is abundant, but it's not exactly... linear. Lots of options and trial/error to get things going the way you want it but I've got it figured out. If anyone wants to chat about it, I'm here to help.

 

http://www.hashbackup.com/

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Briefly looked over the site, and am intrigued. It appears at first glance that you need enough space locally to complete the backup, then the completed backup is sent in chunks to the cloud providers or other remote destinations of your choice. Did I miss something? Is there an option to directly back up offsite instead of requiring a local backup first?

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Briefly looked over the site, and am intrigued. It appears at first glance that you need enough space locally to complete the backup, then the completed backup is sent in chunks to the cloud providers or other remote destinations of your choice. Did I miss something? Is there an option to directly back up offsite instead of requiring a local backup first?

 

This is one of the tunable items. The option your'e looking for is "cache-size-limit" On my unraid box I have it set to 1GB.

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One thing about using HashBackup with unRAID: you have to back up the individual drives, /mnt/disk1 /mnt/disk2 etc.  If you try to backup /mnt/user, which is a FUSE filesystem, HB thinks all files change overnight because the FUSE inode cache gets churned.  HB looks for inode numbers changing because it uses this to detect hard links.

 

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I have been experimenting with this today and think it could end up being a really good solution.

 

Although the documentation is good, it is still quite a technical solution as are all the other backup solutions for UnRAID. That being said, with patience and taking things slowly it does all seem to make sense.

 

I am intending to backup to an external USB drive.

 

After initialising the database on my mounted external drive (using the Unassigned Devices plugin) I can then run backups, for example:

 

#Backup iTunes 
hb backup -c /mnt/disks/Backup/hashbackup/ -X /mnt/disk1/iTunes/

#Backup Media 
hb backup -c /mnt/disks/Backup/hashbackup/ -X /mnt/disk1/media/ /mnt/disk2/media/ /mnt/disk3/media/

#Backup Lightroom and Photos 
hb backup -c /mnt/disks/Backup/hashbackup/ -X /mnt/disk2/Lightroom/

#Backup Cache app configs and docker
hb backup -c /mnt/disks/Backup/hashbackup/ -X /mnt/cache/apps/ /mnt/cache/docker.img

 

Can anyone help with a few questions?

 

[*]I'm aware (from reading above) that drives should be backed up individually, not their user shares. Is is better to backup all my media types to the same destination database, or separate ones? For example, should I create a separate hashbackup database for iTunes, Media, Photos etc, or use the same as in my example above?

[*]If I wanted to backup regularly I assume I should create a cron job. Is there a preferred way to do this? It seems a common question, but direction as to the latest "best method" would be appreciated.

[*]If I use the Unassigned Devices script, I assume I can run my backups every time I plug in my drive? I'm hoping I can run backups at say 2am IF the drive is mounted, but not if it is not without loads of errors.

[*]The docker.img appeared to backup correctly. Should I stop all dockers first? If so, I assume this can be done from command line? If so, anyone know where to find this info?

 

I was able to (easily) mount my backup and browse it as a test. It could be read easily. A good sign.

 

I'd (of course) love this sort of functionality to be built in to UnRAID, including a proper GUI to access it all. I still believe this should be a priority for Lime Tech, even with their limited resources. Without backup UnRAID will always be an incomplete product and will be unsuitable for a large segment of the potential market. Yes I know I harp on and on about this ;)

 

All in all though, looking good.

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backing up docker.img is not really needed. It's a static file that is populated when docker is started and containers are initialized / started. If you were to lose it, simply restarting docker and its containers would rebuild it from the internet sources.

 

The appdata folder is trickier. It contains your docker app config's so the containers should be shutdown as settings might not have been written to the file(s).

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backing up docker.img is not really needed. It's a static file that is populated when docker is started and containers are initialized / started. If you were to lose it, simply restarting docker and its containers would rebuild it from the internet sources.

 

The appdata folder is trickier. It contains your docker app config's so the containers should be shutdown as settings might not have been written to the file(s).

Ah, makes sense.

 

I'm now running with Unassigned Devices plugin and so far am really happy with the combination of the two.

 

I think Hashbackup has significant advantages over rsync and is really rather brilliant.

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I'm interested but the site says that license is going to be around $250 per year once it leaves beta testing.

Hmm. Hadn't spotted that - thanks for pointing it out. That's more than my server I want to backup cost!

 

I'll have to consider going back to rsync or alternatives (borg backup looks similar), with is a pain after the time I've put in to understanding this.

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I'm interested but the site says that license is going to be around $250 per year once it leaves beta testing.

Hmm. Hadn't spotted that - thanks for pointing it out. That's more than my server I want to backup cost!

 

I'll have to consider going back to rsync or alternatives (borg backup looks similar), with is a pain after the time I've put in to understanding this.

I'm having a hard time justifying that kind of cost for something that doesn't actually provide backup space. All they are doing is managing backup space that you have to provide.
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  • 1 year later...

I'm looking at using HashBackup to backup some critical data from my Unraid server... I'm just kind of curious where this $250 potential license fee came from.

 

Two observations that I've made:

1. HashBackup has been in 'beta' since 2009, while it could switch to commercial licensing tomorrow... not sure how close that really is. Definitely something to consider.

2. The HashBackup website clearly states that the license cost will be based on the volume of data being backed up. Large corporations would pay a lot more than me with my simple 5TB home server (only about 500GB that I want to backup with HashBackup). The website does not mention any suggested price ranges at all & it even calls out that there will be a free version for small volume users. It does not specify what the cutover will be from free to paid.

 

With these considerations, I am still thinking I will move forward with HashBackup. Even when the license goes paid, I can't imagine the license would cost more than something like CrashPlan since HashBackup doesn't host any of the data...

 

This is a pretty old thread... but thought I'd give my 2 cents for anybody else that comes searching (as I have).

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