Thanks to @nicnab and @rawtaz’s suggestions, I reviewed my opinion on restic and its settings, especially regarding backing up folders or files instead of full HD.
I consider restic a powerful resource.
I tried a backup of some folders on AWS S3, and it worked fine.
I also tried a backup of some folders on Backblaze, which worked fine.
Both S3 and Backblaze are chargeable, although Backblaze should be cheaper.
Considering that, I wonder if a local SSD hard disk might be a more practical backup solution.
What are your thoughts on this?
What do you suggest to me?
Backing up to an SSD is fine, but one has to understand that the SSD can fail and also that if the house burns down so does your backups. So it’s good practice to have at least one backup outside of the house, e.g. on S3. Perhaps one backup to your local SSD and one backup to your S3 is a good setup for you?
Which one to use is entirely a matter of which works best for you in terms of cost, accounting etc. Technically both meet the need. Personally I would probably use S3 but I know that people use both.
I can’t really recommend one or the other as I don’t have experience with them and wouldn’t want to continuously pay someone else to buy a hard disk for me once. I’d do the following:
Backup to a local USB device (primary backup)
rsync that repo to a USB device connected to a Raspberry Pi at a friend’s house (disaster recovery)
From time to time rsync to an otherwise disconnected USB device (offline backup)
This works very well for me. Important in any case: make sure you always have the restic key available outside the backup.
S3 compatible destination is very good choice for restic backup. Protocol is de facto standard and you can use many other free and paid tools to manage it.
There are other options available beyond AWS and B2. For simple backup there is no point to pay massive premium for features these two offer and you most likely do not need.
Check IDrive e2 S3 for example (this is what I use). $30 per TB per year, effectively no egress nor transactions charges. Works like a charm with restic. Also supports object lock. You might not need it now but it is IMO fantastic feature to create disaster proof backup.
Definitely stay away from AWS. It is fantastic solution but with enterprise features and pricing. Also it is very complex and super easy to incur massive bill if you do not know what you are doing. Or even when you know:):
Thank you, @kapitainsky, for your input.
I am aware of the risks related to the high costs associated with using AWS; my instances are there, and I am evaluating moving them elsewhere.
I read about IDrive, and I remember that there were some cons primarily related to slowness.
However, I’ll take a look.
I use Wasabisys.com for backups. It’s pay for storage, no charge for ingress or egress. Currently about $7/TB/month. It uses the S3 protocol, and restic works great with it.
Very interesting information. Can you tell me about the speed for downloads?
I’m about to decide between Backblaze, iDrive, Storage, etc… I need less than 1 TB
I can saturate 200 Mbits Internet connection I have but YMMV. Depends where you are and bucket locational. I would suggest to test few locations closest to you.