I recently decided to replace the SD card in my Raspberry Pi and reinstall the system. Without any special backups in place, I turned to rsync to duplicate /var/lib/docker with all my containers, including Nextcloud.
Step #1: I mounted an external hard drive to /mnt/temp.
Step #2: I used rsync to copy the data to /mnt/tmp. See the difference?
Step #3: I reformatted the SD card.
Step #4: I realized my mistake.
Moral: no one is immune to their own stupidity 😂
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If you have one backup, you have no backup. That’s a hard lesson to learn, but if you care about those photos it’s possible to recover them if you haven’t written stuff on that sdcard yet.
At least 3 backups, 2 different media, 1 offsite location.
I like 3-2-1-1-0 better. Like yours, but:
- the additional 1 is for “offline” (so you have one offsite and offline backup copy).
- 0 for zero errors. Backups must be tested and verified.
Fuck up #1: no backups
Fuck up #2: using SD cards for data storage. SD cards and USB drives are ephemeral storage devices, not to be relied on. Most of the time they use file systems like FAT32 which are far less safe than NTFS or ext4. Use reliable storage media, like hard drives.
Fuck up #3: no backups.
My condolences :'(
I once lost a bunch of data because I accidently left a / at the end of a path… rsync can be dangerous lol
Rclone is superior IMHO, you have to explicitly name the output folder. Used to think it was a hassle but in hindsight being explicit about the destination reduces mistakes.
Sometimes you’re hands are tied by the tools already on the server - but I’ll try to remember to check to see if that’s available next time.
