What do you think of my backup strategy?

Hey,

actually I'm using pve backup to secure my vms/lxc onto my NAS in the same network. I start to use my ZFS for nextcloud and before I want to use it "productive" I want to adjust my backup.

Current setup
8-12x LXC
1-2x VM

Backup: VMS/LSC --> NAS via NFS

For Nextcloud

Code:

#create datapool
zpool create -f -o ashift=12 <pool> raidz1 <device1> <device2> <device3> <device4> <device5>

#create datasets
zfs create data_tank/nextcloud-data
zfs set compression=lz4 data_tank/nextcloud-data
zfs set atime=off data_tank/nextcloud-data

#mount dataset to nextcloud container
pct set 115 -mp0 /data_tank/nextcloud-data,mp=/mnt/nextcloud-data

Goal

Complies with the 3-2-1 backup strategy
Protection against hardware failure, ransomware and site loss
Scalable with growing storage needs
Cost-efficient

Target architecture

Onsite

Proxmox
- ZFS Dataset: data_tank/nextcloud-data
- VMs / LXC
PBS Onsite (LXC on Proxmox)
- Storage: NAS (1x 8TB, no mirror)

Offsite (Intel NUC)

PBS (bare metal, 1x 8 TB)
- Datastore: backup_pool/pbs-datastore
ZFS Pool
- backup_pool/nextcloud-data
syncoid (Pull)

Data Flow (On-Off over Wireguard)

VM/LXC

Proxmox → PBS Onsite → PBS Offsite

Backups are first performed locally
Offsite PBS synchronizes automatically

Nextcloud Data (ZFS)

Offsite NUC pulls data: NUC → Proxmox:data_tank/nextcloud-data → NUC:backup_pool/nextcloud-data

Job runs on the NUC
No push from Proxmox

Security

Pull instead of push (ZFS)
Versioning (PBS + ZFS snapshots)
Separate systems
No direct offsite write access
Enable retention
- 24-hourly
- 7 days daily
- 4 weeks weekly
Keep multiple backup versions

Decision made

No RAID necessary
Multiple locations preferred over mirroring
ZFS = Data
PBS = Systems

Results

3 copies (Proxmox + PBS Onsite + PBS Offsite)
2 media types (not quite, but zpool/raidz1 + NAS)
1 offsite location

Code:

#fast local restores
zfs snapshot data_tank/nextcloud-data@auto-$(date +%F-%H%M)

#offsite pbs
zfs set readonly=on backup_pool/nextcloud-data

zfs set readonly=off backup_pool/nextcloud-data
syncoid root@proxmox:data_tank/nextcloud-data backup_pool/nextcloud-data
zfs set readonly=on backup_pool/nextcloud-data

What do you think?

wbk

Renowned Member

Hi .n3,

Looks solid to me, given the hardware. From a data recovery perspective, it is better to have one disk at two locations than mirror at a single location, just like you propose.

I'm not familiar with syncoid. Have you looked into the native PBS remote functionality?

I'm not familiar with syncoid. Have you looked into the native PBS remote functionality?

As far I can see @.n3 uses syncoid only for the backup of his nextcloud bulk data. I do something similiar myself with my NAS data although the NAS OS is a VM. Storage on cloud vservers can get quite expensive so it makes sense to use cheaper storage options for bulk data (like NAS/nextcloud data or the stuff on my notebook) with a dedicated tool for it and PBS for the relative small amount of data in VM/lxcs OS/application images.
Another reason to seperate this would be if you want to be able to restore the stuff in your nas or nextcloud without PBS.

@.n3 Your approach is well thought and I don't see any obvious faults in it. I would consider adding another offsite storage on a cloud provider (e.g. hetzner storagebox, some s3 target like backbaze or aws) so you still have another copy if somehow some bad actor managed to take over both of your servers.
For example on your offsite server you could use rclone or restic to backup your nextcloud data to cloud storage like s3 or storagebox. For the data in PBS you could use the new S3-feature. It's still technology preview so I wouldn't relie on it as sole backup provider though. But since already have this covered with our Backupserver as primary backup this wouldn't be to bad.
Another option would be to create additional vma-backups with the native backup feature of ProxmoxVE (so without PBS) from time to time and rclone/sync them to some s3 or another cloud storage. Since they need more space than PBS you wouldn't do this every day, but maybe weekly or monthly (depending on your paranoia and monetary/storage budgets).
One interesting feature of rclone is the ability to have a restic-server for the restic backup tool in an append-only mode: https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_restic/
So you could setup ProxmoxVE paaralel to your PBS (it's possible although not recommended to install both bare metal on the same machine) with a small rclone lxc which would regulary backup your nextcloud-data (and if you make them vzdumps/vma backups) to some s3-storage.
Another option would be to rent a cheap vserver (for 5-10 euro), setup rclone in serve-restic-mode and use it only as "sole proxy" for uploading stuff to a s3-storage.

Hi .n3,
Looks solid to me, given the hardware. From a data recovery perspective, it is better to have one disk at two locations than mirror at a single location, just like you propose.
I'm not familiar with syncoid. Have you looked into the native PBS remote functionality?

Thanks for the response. It is good to hear, that my thoughts are valid.
As far as I know, PBS can backup a ZFS Dataset. syncoid uses zfs send and zfs receive to repicate the dataset with snapshots.

As far I can see @.n3 uses syncoid only for the backup of his nextcloud bulk data. I do something similiar myself with my NAS data although the NAS OS is a VM. Storage on cloud vservers can get quite expensive so it makes sense to use cheaper storage options for bulk data (like NAS/nextcloud data or the stuff on my notebook) with a dedicated tool for it and PBS for the relative small amount of data in VM/lxcs OS/application images.
Another reason to seperate this would be if you want to be able to restore the stuff in your nas or nextcloud without PBS.

I noticed your like. Thank you for it and for the extended answer. I don't need PBS because vor my lxc/vms I'm using the nativ backup functionallity of proxmox. It is simple but the backup is approx 400GB. With PBS I get a better compression and bitrot protection etc. But I think it is a one time effort to set it up and I hope it is not to complicated.

@.n3 Your approach is well thought and I don't see any obvious faults in it. I would consider adding another offsite storage on a cloud provider (e.g. hetzner storagebox, some s3 target like backbaze or aws) so you still have another copy if somehow some bad actor managed to take over both of your servers.
For example on your offsite server you could use rclone or restic to backup your nextcloud data to cloud storage like s3 or storagebox. For the data in PBS you could use the new S3-feature. It's still technology preview so I wouldn't relie on it as sole backup provider though. But since already have this covered with our Backupserver as primary backup this wouldn't be to bad.

Hm, I checked hetzner befor and 20TB PBS would cost approx 60€/mtl. Realistiv is 5-10TB, but this will be also 12-25€.

Another option would be to create additional vma-backups with the native backup feature of ProxmoxVE (so without PBS) from time to time and rclone/sync them to some s3 or another cloud storage. Since they need more space than PBS you wouldn't do this every day, but maybe weekly or monthly (depending on your paranoia and monetary/storage budgets).
One interesting feature of rclone is the ability to have a restic-server for the restic backup tool in an append-only mode: https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_restic/
So you could setup ProxmoxVE paaralel to your PBS (it's possible although not recommended to install both bare metal on the same machine) with a small rclone lxc which would regulary backup your nextcloud-data (and if you make them vzdumps/vma backups) to some s3-storage.
Another option would be to rent a cheap vserver (for 5-10 euro), setup rclone in serve-restic-mode and use it only as "sole proxy" for uploading stuff to a s3-storage.

Maybe I can use my "old" 2x 4TB hdds for the it, or the s3 optionl only for my lxc/vms. But the important thing is the nextcloud zfs dataset.

wbk

Renowned Member

@.n3 , sorry for hijacking your thread ;-)
@Johannes S : I'm somewhat in the same boat, allow me to ask for clarification

a) Storage on cloud vservers can get quite expensive ... b) use cheaper storage options for bulk data .... c) a dedicated tool for it

a) What do you mean with cloud vserver? Not the linux-vserver project I suppose ;-) but rather a 'fluid' cloud-based offer than a regular VPS or a homeserver?
b) Do you mean 'hosted storage services' as cheaper as opposed to NVMe-backed services, or private storage capacity?
c) In this case, back up the data separately from the system in which it is kept? Do you untangle Nextcloud data, configuration and database to back them up separately, with scripted restore to put it back together?

I don't need PBS because vor my lxc/vms I'm using the nativ backup functionallity of proxmox. It is simple but the backup is approx 400GB. With PBS I get a better compression and bitrot protection etc. But I think it is a one time effort to set it up and I hope it is not to complicated.

I think I misunderstand : do you set up PBS, but you don't need it because you use the PVE native backups instead?

Maybe I can use my "old" 2x 4TB hdds for the it, or the s3 optionl only for my lxc/vms. But the important thing is the nextcloud zfs dataset.

You could run a self-hosted S3 service like garage on it, and do a file-based pull as a non-ZFS dependent backup (or is that what the 8 TB NAS is already doing?)

@.n3 , sorry for hijacking your thread ;-)
@Johannes S : I'm somewhat in the same boat, allow me to ask for clarification
a) What do you mean with cloud vserver? Not the linux-vserver project I suppose ;-) but rather a 'fluid' cloud-based offer than a regular VPS or a homeserver?

A VPS like the ones by contabo, netcup or hetzner I host my offsite PBS that way but the costs of bucks/GB means that they are not really suited for large amount of data (at least with my budget) compared to some cloud storage so

b) Do you mean 'hosted storage services' as cheaper as opposed to NVMe-backed services, or private storage capacity?

I mean as an offsite location if you don't have a private site b or don't want to rlive with the risk something bad happens at your family/friend members place where hosts your private backup server. For example Hetzners storagebox cost around 11 Euro für 5 TB of storage space (https://www.hetzner.com/de/storage/storage-box/ ), Backblaze starts at 6 Euro per TB for their s3-compatible storage: https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/pricing
A cheap vserver at netcup starts at 5 Euro but won't have much storage. You can add storage but this costs around 12 Euro per TB. So netcup is still quite affordable (that's the reason I run my offsite PBS on it) but I can't backup my NAS and notebook data on it since it's way too much. For my (relative small) vm and lxcs where it's mainly about the ability to quickly get services running again without wasting time in reconfiguring everything again it's perfect.
If on the other hand I would run a company I would propably reconsider and get a managed PBS service like the ones provided by tuxis.nl or inett and two or three different s3 providers for data backups (so if one of them fails I still have the backups on everything else).

You could argue that you shouldn't relie on vm or lxcs backups because with a configuration-management tool like ansible, chef or puppet/openvox you should be able to resetup everything automatically without the need to restore vms and lxcs. It's something I still have on the todo for my homelab. But even then I can imagine some scenarios where it might be useful to have backups of everything.

c) In this case, back up the data separately from the system in which it is kept? Do you untangle Nextcloud data, configuration and database to back them up separately, with scripted restore to put it back together?

I don't use nextcloud. I use TrueNAS on a VM though. Since I passed through a storage controller for the storage discs the regular backup with ProxmoxVE and PBS only gets the OS data. So for the NAS data I would need to use the proxmox backup client inside the vm to do the backup. Since I don't want to use the PBS for it anyhow (for the said reasons) I instead use restic with resticprofile.
I do the same seperation on my vms. For example my paperless instance is hosted with docker from a debian vm. The VM has two virtual discs:
- One for the operating system and one for the application installs (aka all docker images and configuration of the applications I host)
- The actual data is hosted on the TrueNAS instance as samba and nfs network shares. These shares are mounted on the vm and configured in docker as storage volumes.
- If for some reason I would want to backup stuff on some virtual disc without putting it on the NAS in a network share I would put it on a dedicated virtual disc and exclude the disc from the backup jobs (there is a checkbox in the VM or lxc configuration to do this) and again setup restic inside the vm

I think I misunderstand : do you set up PBS, but you don't need it because you use the PVE native backups instead?

I can't speak for @.n3 but I do it this way: I use PBS as VM/lxc backups and also do additional native backups so I can still restore an older state in case I can't access the PBS backups anymore. But since native backups needs a lot of space I don't do this as much as my backups to PBS: I do at least daily backups to PBS (for important vms/lxcs even every hour or two hours depending on their importance) but I have also weekly or monthly native backups as additional safety.

You could run a self-hosted S3 service like garage on it, and do a file-based pull as a non-ZFS dependent backup (or is that what the 8 TB NAS is already doing?)

Then .n3 would still relie that his offsite or NAS never fails.

Last edited: Mar 31, 2026

I think I misunderstand : do you set up PBS, but you don't need it because you use the PVE native backups instead?

Acutally I'm using the PVE nativ backups and therefore I don't need PBS. I need a PC for my offsite backup. A PI will work, but I want to work with external storage etc. I bought a used mini pc. Now I can install PBS Offsite. So I can use PBS to get a little bit more security.

Then .n3 would still relie that his offsite or NAS never fails.

But not in my scenario, because my offsite can fail and I have still my onsite and production data.

wbk

Renowned Member

Thanks both for elaborating!

I was about to get started when I noticed that my NAS uses NFS, not ZFS. This isn't a problem for the on-site PBS, but I can only transfer the Nextcloud dataset to the NAS using rsync. Only my offsite PBS could handle versioning with ZFS send and ZFS receive.

What do you think? Is this acceptable, or would it be better to also use a ZFS-based PBS on-site? I would then replace the NAS with another NUC. The on-site PBS would then no longer run in LXC, but on bare metal. It would be cleaner, but I think it's overkill for my home lab. I don't actually need versioning for creating a container or restoring data to a specific point in time. My use case is more along the lines of:

- House burns down, I have an off-site backup
- Disks fail, I can restore the last state
- Ramson software encrypts data, and I can then restore it.

Last edited: Mar 30, 2026

UdoB

Distinguished Member

Only my on-site PBS could handle versioning with ZFS send and ZFS receive.

The functionality and usability of PBS has nothing to do with ZFS. (It does not depend on ZFS and/or ZFS-send/receive.)

The on-site PBS would then no longer run in LXC, but on bare metal. It would be cleaner

Yes! And it would be available when the node (which hosts that LXC) dies!

, but I think it's overkill for my home lab.

Maybe. That is completely up to your expectation/requirement and depends on the actual importance of the backuped data.

I have more independent backups in my homelab than I have in my dayjob: my dayjob follows some strict rules (e.g. 3-2-1) while in my homelab I have reused (semi-) old hardware to implement multiple PBS'.

Last edited: Mar 30, 2026

The functionality and usability of PBS has nothing to with ZFS. (It does not depend on ZFS and/or ZFS-send/receive.)

I correct it to offsite and it is a little bit confusing. I mean, that my offsite is a mini pc with PBS. Therefore I can use ZFS for my storage and therefore I can use versioning etc. for my tfs dataset. This was what I meant, that PBS don't need ZFS but my ZFS dataset.

Okay, there's a small update. I wanted to set up the onsite Proxmox Server (PBS) and replace the hard drive in the NAS for that purpose. Unfortunately, the NAS is end-of-life (EOL), and therefore the packages for NFS are no longer offered. The NAS can only use SMB now. SMB isn't recommended, but the question is whether it would be sufficient for my home lab. Since I only ever saw it as a compromise anyway, I took this as a sign from fate and got another used mini-PC.

So now I have a server with Proxmox in the network cabinet. An onsite PBS on bare metal will go in my office, and an offsite PBS, also on bare metal, will go to my parents' house.

The PBS will also get a small hardware upgrade:

- 512GB SSD (offsite 256GB) for PBS
- 16GB RAM (8GB offsite)
- 12TB HDD for ZFS backup
- 4TB HDD for PBS backup

I want to set everything up before Easter and connect it at my parents' house on Easter.

Would you use WireGuard (my favorit) or OpenVPN for PBS communication?

Last edited: Mar 31, 2026

UdoB

Distinguished Member

Would you use WireGuard (my favorit) or OpenVPN for PBS communication?

That's easy: personally I do prefer Wireguard too :-)

Only if there is an OpenVPN connection already established I would simply use that one.

(( I have had soooo many troubles with OpenVPN in the far(!) past that I was really, really happy when WireGuard got released in stock kernel by default. Since then I usually establish a hand-crafted point-to-point tunnel for an external server. Never looked back... :-) ))

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wbk

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UdoB

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