Turning old desktop into home backup server

[Emu]

I'm new to backup servers and need help setting up a home backup server running Linux. The server should have incremental backups and have cross-platform support.

How would I go about making one and which software do you recommend? Also how would I setup raid 1 and do I need any special hardware?

If you have any advice I would appreciate it as well.

[nicsch]

For rad you can look in your bios or just google your mainboard if it supports it. If not you would have to buy a raid card. 

I can't help you with setting up such an server on Linux. I use windows server and on the pc I want to backup FreeFileSync (I`ve added the server as a Network share/drive and assinged it a drive letter). 

[Emu]

1 hour ago, nicsch said:

For rad you can look in your bios or just google your mainboard if it supports it. If not you would have to buy a raid card. 

I can't help you with setting up such an server on Linux. I use windows server and on the pc I want to backup FreeFileSync (I`ve added the server as a Network share/drive and assinged it a drive letter). 

Can freefilesync make incremental backups or would it be better to find some other backup software for that?

[nicsch]

17 minutes ago, Emu said:

Can freefilesync make incremental backups or would it be better to find some other backup software for that?

Yes it can. But you can just try it out. Make a small backup onto an USB or somthing and just test out some settings.

[Emu]

16 minutes ago, nicsch said:

Yes it can. But you can just try it out. Make a small backup onto an USB or somthing and just test out some settings.

Will try it out once I get home. Looks promising, I'll just have to learn to set the server as a drive.

Thanks for all the help.

[nicsch]

This is where you can add it on Windows 10 ( It's in german but should look the same).
No problem

[Acedia]

On 2/24/2019 at 12:42 PM, Emu said:

I'm new to backup servers and need help setting up a home backup server running Linux. The server should have incremental backups and have cross-platform support.

How would I go about making one and which software do you recommend?

Veeam. The agent for baremetal Windows and Linux is free. Just set up your backup server as a file share and use it as the backup repository.

[soulreaper11207]

Brah, urBackup. Hands down one of the easiest agent server backup solutions I have ever personally worked with, and I am a server admin that maintains hundreds of client server backups a night. You just install it on the server, point it to a storage location, slap it on a client machine, and let it run. If you want to get down the finer details, you can configure when it does its 4 different kinds of backups, or even just have it do just one kind. I'm running it on Ubuntu, but it runs just fine on Windows and Redhat too. Idk about a MAC server though. 

[Rusted]

On 2/24/2019 at 1:42 PM, Emu said:

I'm new to backup servers and need help setting up a home backup server running Linux. The server should have incremental backups and have cross-platform support.

How would I go about making one and which software do you recommend? Also how would I setup raid 1 and do I need any special hardware?

If you have any advice I would appreciate it as well.

If you want to secure your data in case of hardware failure a backup server isn't the best option and raid 1 is not a backup. At least not alone.

 

There is the 3-2-1 rule for backups:

-Have at least three copies of your data.
-Store the copies on two different media.
-Keep one backup copy offsite.

 

For example I have copies of my photos on freeNAS server, my computer, external hdd, google drive and two sets of blu-rays(one copy offsite)

I try to do at least monthly backups to external hdd and google drive, blu-rays are made when there is enough photos to fill one.

Why? I have lost some pictures and videos that I would like to have but those are gone for ever.

 

If you want to have access to your data from multiple computer or run a media server there are OS like freeNAS that can do that.

I have a freeNAS server that runs nextcloud to sync photos from my phone to the server and from there to my computer.

 

Easier solution might be using program called syncthing https://syncthing.net/ it can synchronize files and folders between devices.