Comment by MasterYoda | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MasterYoda | Hacker News Reader

Half OT, but... I want to have a backup on another site, at an family member. Like the 3-2-1 rule, 3 copies, on 2 different medium and 1 off site.

For the off site backup, I want a cheap solution and was thinking of an rasberryPi with an connected usb-hdd and then the rPi connected to a family members wifi-router that I could connect to over the internet and do my backups to.

My question are: 1 - What solutions are there to make encrypted backups to a rasberryPi from windows? I don't want to encrypt all files with encrypted 7z files and transfer them (it is an mess), but just to have a solution so I can choose the unencrypted files and folders and then the software encrypts them on the fly and transfer them over to the rPi.

2 - The optimal solution would be to have the rPi usb-hdd mapped as an network drive or similar in explorer. But would that be possible with the first requirement that all files must be encrypted on the fly? 1 is more important than 2.

3 - I have read that a rPi not can handle a connected usb-hdd because it will take to much power than the rPi can deliver. Does there exist an dongle or something that you could connect one or two usb-hhd to the rPi and the dongle is connected to the powergrid and gives the usb-hdd the power they need and then the dongle is connected to the rPi but only transfer data? Or is there any other solutions?

Sorry for maybe stupid questions. But I have no clues here, what to search/look for or even if it is possible. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Like the sibling comment: I also have a raspberry pi and 3.5" USB external drive with it's own power supply.

I tried a 5TB 2.5" SMR HDD powering it off the raspberry pi for a while and it worked for maybe a year and a half. Then all of a sudden starting the Sync Process for Resilio sync would cause the drive to drop out. So I upgraded to the 8TB 3.5.

Resilio sync may meet or requirements but not exactly. Resilio syncs the folders between two computers, but you don't have to sync everything. Things that don't get synced get placeholders. So it's the best of both worlds. Fast for what you use because it's local, takes zero space for what you don't. Similar to Google Drives new streaming feature, but manual and not transparent. Also for the encryption you will want the "untrusted folder setup".

Syncthing has a similar product, haven't played around with it though.

Like the other sibling comment Tailscale is great so you don't have to fiddle with your friends router. But be careful tailscale will need to occasionally be reauthenticated.

I do not recommend SMR drives for anything other than archiving. Cheap but very slow. I think it took a week to back up my 500GB MacBook.

i'm basically running that setup: rpi, external usb, encrypted backup.

- i'd recommend attaching an external 3,5 disk that comes with its own power supply, that way you don't have to worry about power, it's cheaper and you have more storage.

- For backup i am using borgbackup. it does encryption and deduplication. you can also backup several machines to the same repository if you want to. i'm using it for several use cases, it's rock solid, never had a problem.

- you can safely use borgbackup over ssh if you want to do remote backup. just forward the ssh port on your friends router and use dyndns if they don't have a static ip.

3 .. power HDD

You can use a powered USB hub.

Also. Remember the old 2,5” external USB HDD y-style cables that had an extra USB 2 plug (connected with a thinner cable with just 2 wires for the power and not data) that you could plug into a second USB sockets so the disk draws power from 2 ports? Maybe such thing still exists for current USB disks.

You can then plug the second plug into a standard USB charger for smartphones or similar.

Well, if you do buy the PiBox, it supports two 2.5" SSDs, which should do you unless you need a LOT of backup. I've found Duplicati works quite well across mixed Windows/Linux backup scenarios, and it can also push your backups to cheap S3 compatible storage either locally or out on the Net.

I recommend using Tailscale to connect to the box securely. Your usage should fall comfortably within free tier limits. (It has 20 devices iirc.)

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