Customize pruning for lot of usage

Getting Help
1

Hi,

I use wasabi with restic for my backup system. My future plan is that save data and money for my restic settings because restic will backup a lot of different folders and delete them every day.

For example,

If a user deletes a snapshot, should I use prune after every forget command?

Which --max-unused Option should I use?

Thanks.

2

It’s hard to give an advice because it depends on multiple factors. How big are the snapshots and how much do they change? How many clients are accessing the repository? How often do they backup and how long does a backup take? Will prune interrupt regular backups?

IMHO frequent pruning does not make sense in most scenarios because:

  • The repository is exclusively locked and prevents backups.
  • Frequent pruning (i.e. daily) usually doesn’t save much storage space.
  • Wasabi has a ‘minimum storage retention policy’ and charges for files deleted within 90 days.
3

I am also a wasabi user. Personally I keep forget and prune as separate operations and insert a check between them. This has resulted with virtually no problems with pruning that were occurring. It may be no longer necessary, but it adds little time when doing them together, and the only way to find out is to risk errors again.

4

-How big are the snapshots?
50MB to 20GB

how much do they change?
$.0059 per GB/month ($5.99 per TB/month)

How many clients are accessing the repository?
More than 20+

How often do they backup and how long does a backup take?
daily or hourly

how long does a backup take?
3min-15mins

Will prune interrupt regular backups?
probably

All the above metrics are estimated. It could be more.

  • Wasabi has a ‘minimum storage retention policy’ and charges for files deleted within 90 days.

Didn’t know that.

We created a user panel for our customers. We already backup locally but we still give them the option to use cloud service.

5

I think it is the right way to do it but in our environment, we have more than one user and they have control over backup. I think we should limit their backup operations.

6

I’d start with weekly pruning and --max-repack-size=1 and see how that goes.

7

What’s your Restic version? As a recent Restic adopter I haven’t experienced any forget/prune problem yet, but it is good to keep things in perspective.

8

I’m on 0.12.1, but you probably meant to ask what version I was on, and I can’t tell you that as I don’t remember. The problem was on the wasabi end, not on the restic end.

9

Thanks for the feedback. You answered exactly what I wanted to know.

Just for record (it may be of any help for other users) I’m also on 0.12.1 backing up to Google Drive (through rclone 1.50.2 on Mint 20.3) for the last 4 weeks. Prune scheme is the so called smart retention with overall outstanding performances and absolutely zero errors so far.