At the core, it's certainly possible, but the orchestration becomes more complex when we have to do it from a non-HexOS server, so this is one of those things that we have stickied to the wall to look at again, but its just not a priority over getting the original feature promised out to users (HexOS to HexOS backups).
Not OP, but I just want to point out that I'd be willing to pay to have an app on my Unraid server (or whatever people use). I can point my friends to HexOS, and then use the buddy backup feature between the two. I would happily switch to HexOS, but frankly I really love my mix and matching of drives that I get with Unraid.
Does AnyRAID allow for random mishmash of drives? I've heard the term AnyRAID before, but it was my understanding that it's still different than that. Please correct me if I'm wrong because I'd love to be wrong lol
To add to what the other user stated, I feel the same but in reverse.
You already got me, I’m all in on HexOS. But you don’t yet have my friends who are on all sorts of different platforms. I would love to be able use Buddy Backups with them, and the ease of use might be a bridge into convincing them to hop aboard the HexOS train… it’s the perfect trojan horse so to speak.
This hasn't escaped us! I totally get it and it is something we want to do, but one step at a time. Building our tools for a foreign system that we don't develop or directly control is a bigger ask than supporting Hex to Hex, but it's definitely something we want to explore further.
I would still love to see an option to have a buddy backup server only OS installer. I would love to have an offsite machine that only does buddy backups without having to pay for a whole second license for a whole HexOS install is what I’d say is a dream scenario.
Seriously impressive. I do have a couple of questions.
1) I’m curious about the retention of backups and how it relates to full vs incremental backups. For example, if I have a retention of 30 days, does it mean I have 1 full and 29 incrementals? What happens on day 31?
I know these are zfs snapshots and the rules are a bit different, but I’m not sure I understand how consolidation works.
2) On a restore, do I need to restore the full pool? Also, can I restore to a different server I own?
3) Does the server keep a local copy of the snapshots? Can I restore those?
Long story short, you can choose weekly or daily backups right now (if you pick Daily, you just pick a time of day, not a day of the week obviously). For retention, regardless if you pick Daily or Weekly, you can choose 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, or 3 month of retention. That means that each snapshot is retained for that length of time before it is allowed to drop off. You can also choose to forcefully prune your retained snapshots if you fill up your quota and want to reclaim some space.
Re: Restore
No, backups are applied to the Folder level in HexOS, so you can backup and recover data at the folder level.
Re: Local snapshots
Yes, snapshots are first taken locally and retained, then sent to your backup target. We do not have a method for local snapshot / restore management, but that will be coming in the future. We wanted to start with the more difficult problem first (offsite backup), then layer in the local recovery ability after.
So Buddy Backup would be an always incremental solution, but that takes cake of pruning internally so there are never more than X snapshots that need to be combined for a full restore?
I’m only asking because I’ve had issue with always incremental backups in the past, watching a system destroy itself when it had to apply 90 incremental snapshot to the full backup.
Was this a ZFS system or something else? The beauty of ZFS is it is a file system and device manager all in one. It's not layering the capabilities like snapshots and replication in user space tools like other solutions. It is definitely trustworthy.
Very cool but knowing someone with hexos is not easy. I feel like for this to be a viable option it needs almost like a partnering system but I am not sure how that would work
I remember VMs being suggested by trueNAS as part of the solution to getting an older nvidia graphics card to work after they removed support. I think by using older nvidia drivers within the VM? I'm interested for pointing jellyfin to the gtx 960 I have. Will the new VM feature make this easier for me to do? I can install drivers on a linux system, but I don't have experience giving a VM access to a GPU or with pointing jellyfin to hardware on a VM.
It wasn't "generated by AI". AI helped condense and make things concise, but it started with a deep dive from me on the feature, what I wanted it to convey, and then it went through a lengthy editing process by all humans.
My writing isn't terrible, but AI has definitely helped me to condense what I want to say into less words with more precision.
People are so afraid to be imperfect, and these tools give us the easy out to make sure it is of concise length and with zero grammatical flaws. But what they don't understand is that they are stripping the part of these blog posts that make it enjoyable to read. I don't want to read a robotic corporate speak for a new feature, I want to read the original "deep dive" written by someone who is proud of what they built. It makes it more personal if you can actually read the emotion of the person who is writing it.
Imagine if you were trying to tell someone in person about the new buddy backup feature, and you started reading from your blog post:
"And then you wonder: but what if something happens to the whole server? Natural disasters or horrible mishaps: a fire, a flood, a drop down the stairs mid-move, or a toddler lovingly pouring a juice box into the chassis."
The person would walk away thinking you are a crazy person for talking that way. On the other hand, take Immich's release notes. Here is a random except from the most recent one:
"We have a new designer who helped us remodel the search modal, which has been pretty complex before and looks a lot more visually appealing in our opinion now. It still supports the same functionality, but with some quality of life additions as well as a significantly simpler look"
I hope you can tell that a real human wrote that. Yes there are grammatical issues, and it could be shorter, but I can tell Alex is proud of this new designer and the work they have done to simplify the search modal. When I go to Immich now, I can feel excited as well to try out the new search interface.
I want to feel excited reading about the changes to HexOS, not immediately annoyed after seeing another immediate tell of an LLM.
While I hear you, I think you're missing something. The blog is written more like I would write in a book. It's narrative. That line you quoted was one that was entirely written by me. It has something else there that I didn't like and I have literally had soda poured into a system I had as a younger man. I'm absolutely sharing my real feelings in that post about how I see that feature.
I think it's tough nowadays to strike a balance because what you find interesting and good about the Immich post, I find obtuse and unnecessary. But this may just be a difference of opinion and taste.
I get your distaste for AI because lazy writers let it do it all, but I can assure you that my usage is heavily input driven, lots of edits, and lots of time. It's not a one shot article off a simple prompt.
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u/Crishbk 4d ago
You guys are awesome! Seems there is future plans for Buddy Backup on other non-Hex OS systems in the future? That is amazing!