I just ordered an nvme m.2 to replace the m.2 sata currently in my NUC.
I’ll haunt you if it doesn’t fly. 
The Mighty SonicTransporter AP.
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With Linux, I just use rsync. Two scheduled nightly cron jobs: one shuts down Roonserver, copies the database to my data disk and restarts Roonserver. The other just syncs all contents of /media/data to /media/backup.
Would love to see some sample scripts for us newbies.
In my case, it’s quite simple (I like simple):
Two external disks (LaCie rugged) are mounted at boot by /etc/fstab: /media/data and /media/backup
UUID=688fd427-07e0-47d2-9844-f0c597a41f48 /media/data ext4 defaults 0 0
UUID=4d3fe9f1-514c-4b2c-ae03-14d1cdc6b56f /media/backup ext4 defaults 0 0
In root’s crontab (running Roonserver as root) (sudo crontab -e):
55 2 * * * systemctl stop roonserver.service
00 3 * * * rsync -av --delete /var/roon/RoonServer/ /media/data/backup/RoonServer/
25 3 * * * systemctl start roonserver.service
In the local user’s crontab (crontab -e):
30 3 * * * rsync -av --delete /media/data/ /media/backup/
Make sure all crontabs end on a blank line, or they won’t run.
RBM, if you use --delete, wouldn’t that mean if you accidentally deleted your music library (or database), the rsync would also delete the backup contents if it ran before you realised?
Sure – but otherwise my backup drive would be containing all the cruft I deleted from the source for good reasons.
For extra safety I run a weekly cloud backup of the backup drive (I use Backblaze on Mac, but will probably switch to Amazon Cloud Drive or Backblaze B2 for Linux). If it takes me more than a week to find out my music is gone, I should look for a different hobby.
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I see. Not wishing to go too OT, but you’re obviously quite technical so you have this covered. I just worry a bit about less technical people setting up things like an rsync nightly cron job like the above, and thinking they have a backup. One day after accidentally deleting a sub folder or whatever, their backup version is gone too. I only know this from bitter experience having done a lot of rsync work where things got into an awful mess sometimes - its a powerful and also tricky tool IMO.
Often we aren’t aware that we’re missing that vital file/folder - and so need to restore from backup - until some way down the line so its really important to understand how these things work (I know you do, I mean mere mortals ;))
What’s the speed like backing up and restoring over the internet with these services BTW? I keep thinking I should do it, but just assumed it would be too slow even for my library size (<1TB). Amazon I somehow assumed was hugely expensive for these kinds of volumes?
It’s a preference - I don’t like backups growing out of control with old stuff. I tend to discard quite a few albums after a few listens.
And I’m not into the habit of deleting music I shouldn’t (apart from the time @brian thought it was a good idea to mount watched shares in the Roonserver folder during an early alpha cycle… ;-).
But hey – different use cases, different backup strategies. Rsync is flexible.
Amazon Cloud Drive and Backblaze are both ~$60/yr for unlimited space. Speed is usually limited to your upload speed – the first full backup can take a few days/weeks, but after that it’s usually fine. Speeds can be throttled so they don’t interfere with regular network use. Backblaze will even FedEx a USB drive with your files at cost in case emergency strikes…
I share your concern about the delete option.
I have a Synology NAS, and it comes with a sync utility, but sync is not backup.
It asks me:
When a file is deleted on the computer:
- Do you want it deleted from the NAS as well – NO, because then the NAS wouldn’t protect me from fumbles (or bugs)!
- Do you want it restored to the computer from the NAS – NO, because then I can never get rid of anything!
I see @RBM’s point about the backups growing. And sure they do. But storage is cheap.
there are 3 types of situation people often use/confuse for backups:
RAID mirroring (or some other sort of real-time redundancy) – This is not backup! This is fault tolerance. It will not protect you against corruptness or deletions.
Periodic syncing (like the weekly rsync @RBM is doing) – This is backup, but you must catch the need to restore within the period of the sync.
Incremental backup – This is the best, as you get all the benefits of periodic syncing, with multiple cloned copies, and due to deduplication, you can save quite a bit of history going back in time, extending the period in which you need to notice the need to restore.
My suggested NAS setup gets you the first 2, but you have to use a real backup solution for the last. I personally use Crashplan for that. Our longer term plan is to provide this last case built into Roon with bring-your-own-cloud-storage-provider.
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Amazon S3 is too costly for this, but Amazon Cloud Drive is dirt cheap… $60/year, unlimited storage.
I’m currently using Amazon Cloud Drive. After looking at the link you posted for Crashplan, the latter looks to be much more feature rich compared to Amazon, for a similar price. I’m going to purchase an account there and try it out.
crashplan is cloud backup… amazon cloud drive is cloud storage.
you can do a lot more with amazon, but you have to have tools that support it. when we do backup in-app, we will do it to places like amazon cloud drive and dropbox, and not to crashplan.
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Are you talkIng backup of the database or music?
the feature for the db is like 95% finished, but music would be nice too… but only amazon cloud drive is cost effective for that - and it’s not available outside the US.
One of the options in the FreeFileSync program above is to keep ‘quarantined’ any Deleted Files in a separate folder structure on the Backup location
What this means is that e.g. Roon Music Folder = Backup Music Folder after Sync
The User decides to Delete 10 Albums from within Roon
At the next appointed Sync daily / weekly [recommended], Roon Music folder again Syncs with Backup…but the Deleted Album folders are copied to a separate, easily identified Folder in case you need to recover those files…that ‘Delete’ folder can be kept for as long as the User is happy
Does FreeFileSync’s quarantine save the information to do a full incremental restore? Or will you have to manually go poke at quarantined files?