Never Lose Data AGAIN! Level Up with the Power of Proxmox Backups

[@NightHawkATL]

I have been running a PBS server as bare metal for about 2 years and have had a few different iterations and all have been solid! I am glad they came out with it and made it simple to use. Another great video to help others with getting a great homelab setup!

[@albertpauw8234]

You can also backup to e.g. a USB drive connected to your proxmox (or nfs). The main difference backing up through the Proxmox backup server is that you now have file restore, which you don't have in the backup on the Proxmox VME itself. I never though of using pbs on a Synology as VM, but it's a great idea, thank you.

[@eugeni_cat8334]

I have a cluster of four PVE and a PBS server in parallel. Both backups and disaster restores are very fast and very easy to obtain. Really, if a person wants to try PVE they should never do it without setting up a parallel PBS. Congratulations on the channel. Best regards from Barcelona (Spain) 😎

[@DBTechYT]

Sounds like you've got a solid solution in place. And I agree that everyone doing anything with Proxmox should set up a PBS. It's why I wanted to get this video out early in the series so that it was there BEFORE we did much of anything else :)

[@MarkConstable]

One of my PBS instances is a LXC container with 256MB ram (40% in use) and 4GB of storage (30% in use) and passed through a 1TB storage pool (33% in use). I installed PBS manually on top of a Debian/12 template.

[@Silverstar1995]

I want you to know, I am really enjoying these proxmox videos. You've been very intentionally clear and instructional.

[@DBTechYT]

Glad you like them!

[@jamesmoore7140]

Just a minor note. At around 17:30, I don't think that this is overprovisioning, just the use of base-2 vs base-10 numbers. Notice that when creating a VM and setting the disk sizes at around 12:15, that it asks for the size in GiB, but in the PBS UI, it's showing GB / TB. 128 GiB = ~137 GB. Just the fun of two different units that tend to be used interchangeably (on Windows, for storage they use the "GB" abreviation for storage when it's actually GiB. So at-least props to the Proxmox team for using the correct unit naming).

[@DBTechYT]

That makes sense I think. Gibibytes vs Gigabytes and all that. Thanks for bringing that to my attention!

[@Nemesislh]

This is awesome! I am trying to step up my proxmox game in my homelab (right now 1 cluster with 2 nodes) and this is great! Loving this proxmox series you are doing man!

[@DBTechYT]

Great to hear! Thanks so much!!

[@Weeem]

Huh ... Sweet Currently we have a network share on our NAS which Proxmox mounts as a VZDump backup location. From there there the backup process is the same, but we don't need to have an additional VM running on the NAS side as it's handled by the network share. Nice to see the official method of backup up tho and follow along with each step of setting it up :)

[@TheJohnTyra]

This is fantastic! 😍 Thank you for creating this tutorial video!

[@DBTechYT]

Glad it was helpful!

[@daniel280187]

Thanks man, this is top quality content!!. I'm really glad to watch your videos and keep finding more ways to improve my home lab. I appreciate all the effort you put into creating these videos.

[@DBTechYT]

Happy to help! Thank you for watching and taking a moment to comment. I really appreciate you!

[@drreality1]

Thanks for the tutorial, my only gripe with PBS is that it doesn’t backup host os which is what you’d need in host failure!

[@DBTechYT]

Yeah. Seems like that isn't standard practice, at least based on my research. Also, found this about the topic: www.reddit.com/r/Proxmox/comments/105jqwp/backing_up_proxmox_host/

[@drreality1]

@@DBTechYT thanks, it is the risk of loosing the host and currently without 3 nodes server replication it is likely to be a major downtime trying to setup host passthrough, network , mounts etc!

[@awesomearizona-dino]

Thanks for sharing , this is great info. Hope other things are going well. -Dino

[@DBTechYT]

Thanks for the comment!! :)

[@fucinevideo]

Very nice, thanks. Can you please confirm that the advantages of using PBS, instead of for example some different/default backup options such as NFS solutions, deals with the incremental nature of PBS backups, which implies minimizing the waste of remote storage (and also higher speed in backup tasks themselves)?

[@DBTechYT]

From my experience, PBS makes a backup happen in just a moment rather than having to completely rebuild a VM or CT and then replacing the data. Also, it's super simple to set up and is part of the Proxmox ecosystem so they work together natively and, again, in my opinion, make backups and restorations SUPER simple.

[@zippi777]

Yes, the advantage of using PBS is file's DEDUPLICATION which allows you not to waste HDD space instead of using a simple NFS share connection!

[@fucinevideo]

Thanks you both for confirmation (kinda rsync way of doing things: only what's new/different is transferred, and not the whole vm). Going to set it up within few days, and test space usage and overall speed in transfers.

[@weholmes5315]

Thanks so much for this detailed tutorial! Sounds like restoring from PBS is easy. Any potential issues to watch out for?

[@guillaumearchambault905]

Proxmox backup server is awesome. I would really like to be able to easily make backups to Bucket S3...

[@DBTechYT]

I need to do a video about doing an off-site backup with a 3rd party provider for the offsite backups

[@guillaumearchambault905]

@@DBTechYT I can't wait to see this video then! 😃

[@l0gic23]

​@@DBTechYTalso interested in remote solutions such as family/friends who are willing to plug in your box but otherwise want nothing to do with it... Or they lack the skill or your trust with access...

[@Nextrix]

I know the PBS doesn't support Host backups yet, and I wonder if you have a process that automatically backups the Proxmox Config files that mostly reside in "/etc/". I know Proxmox VE host backups are in the PBS roadmap, and hopefully this will come soon, but just looking for a solution until then.

[@DBTechYT]

The only solution I've found at this point is backing up the etc folder. There are other options you can find if you Google it but it involves live booting another is to create an image of your setup

[@oreoman7319]

How would you recommend doing a backup of the actual proxmox host(pve)?

[@DBTechYT]

Seems like that isn't standard practice, at least based on my research. Also, found this about the topic: www.reddit.com/r/Proxmox/comments/105jqwp/backing_up_proxmox_host/

[@rz5741]

My Proxmox has containers installed through Portainer so they are not LXC containers. Can the Proxmox Backup Server backup these non-LXC containers too?

[@ronm6585]

Thank you very much. Cheers.

[@DBTechYT]

Thanks for stopping by!

[@mintypockets8261]

wipe disk added to the GUI for v3 :)

[@DBTechYT]

what?

[@okanerdem]

Thanks for the great video. Just a small question, if synology broken, what happen? Is there any way to export backup files from synology or pbs backup server?

[@DBTechYT]

that's why you should always have multiple backups of your backups. My Synology backs up to a second NAS, but you could also use something like AWS to have offsite backups of your data in case your local backup solution fails

[@okanerdem]

@@DBTechYT Yeah but during configuration, you added second disk on vm config. So can you able to see the backups in synology folders? If we could see, maybe we could also backup the folders (include pvm backups) to another location. Please let me know if i missed something

[@DBTechYT]

The Synology (in my case) is running a VM of PBS. You could also (in Proxmox) add a storage volume via an NFS share or and SMB/CIFS share on a NAS and back up to that, but I've never personally done that as I prefer the PBS setup for ease of use for my particular use-case.

[@okanerdem]

@@DBTechYT Okay, it's clear, but i just want to say, your virtual backup server running on vm and you added 1024 gb hdd for backup. The question is that, can you see the backups files in synology folders? How can you backup also this folder to another nas or cloud?

[@DBTechYT]

In the PBS VM, you can't see the files anywhere in Synology. There are no folders (shared or otherwise) visible in the NAS with a standard VM storage setup. I back up my entire Synology to another NAS for additional protection.

[@mrpops2ko]

hi can you explain more about the dangers of using backup server on the pve host itself? for example if we walk through the potential scenario of a disaster happening and now your PVE server is toast. i was under the impression that i could reinstall proxmox fresh, and the proxmox backup solution and just 'adopt' it in a sense, just point it to the directory of my backups and job done? i would then be able to restore am i failing in my understanding on how it works? i've not actually installed it yet

[@DBTechYT]

While it's technically possible to run Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) as a VM within your main Proxmox VE server, it's generally not recommended for a few reasons: - Single Point of Failure: If your main Proxmox server has a hardware issue, both your VMs and your backups are at risk. Ideally, backups should be separate from the system they're backing up. - Resource Competition: PBS running as a VM shares resources like CPU, memory, and storage with other VMs. This can lead to performance issues for both the backups and the other VMs, especially during peak backup times. - Limited Functionality: You can't back up the PBS VM itself using the Proxmox VE backup functionality. You'd need a separate solution for that, adding complexity. There are better alternatives: - Bare Metal Install: Install PBS directly on its own hardware, separate from your main Proxmox server. This provides better isolation and avoids resource competition. - Remote PBS: If you have multiple Proxmox servers, consider dedicating one as a PBS server and configure backups to that remote server. This offers redundancy and isolation. In essence, running PBS as a VM creates a situation where a single point of failure can take down both your systems and backups. It's best to keep your backups independent for better disaster recovery.

[@mrpops2ko]

@@DBTechYT thank you so much for the well thought out answer - i'm still not sure how best to incorporate that into my own setup though for cheap. i have only a single host and no real desire to scale it up further past that. i've got a super old raspberry pi, which i've googled around as a PBS target and it might be possible but its going to be very slow lol but maybe thats the best solution

[@davidfarrell1062]

Whats the advantages of PBS over the builtin proxmox backups. Have full backups to SMB but is the difference that PBS does de-dupe ? The biggest gap in backup is the proxmox host itself and being able to restore that if the whole thing falls over. VM recovery is fine but all the configs done to the host would be gone. What are the host recovery options (with only one host) dont want 2 hosts for home setup due to power draw.

[@DBTechYT]

You should never JUST have a local backup of your data. Having a backup on your local machine is fine, but if that machine crashes and you don't have it backed up somewhere else, then those backups are gone. PBS is a great way to make sure that you've got a solid backup strategy that is super simple to setup and manage. Even getting a low-powered mini PC and putting some extra storage in it would be a great solution.

[@davidfarrell1062]

@@DBTechYT my backups are to smb share and to external drive (2 copies)

[@DBTechYT]

That's good. PBS integrates natively with Proxmox and and allows to for easy backups and restoration of any number of backups with just a couple of clicks. I appreciate the simplicity fo the setup and backup/restore process

[@aliasname2257]

question 'don't syology NAS's use raid controllers and won't that create problems setting up the PBS using ZFS' or does it not matter because it's on a VM'?

[@DBTechYT]

It doesn't matter because it's a VM. I've set up multiple Proxmox backup servers this way without issue.

[@l0gic23]

Thn ks!

[@Rockwolf50]

Why not run PBS as either an LXC container or as a docker container on your NAS?

[@DBTechYT]

Why run an unofficial version of something when the official version is SUPER easy to set up and is less likely to have compatibility issues?

[@fredericportier5615]

​@@DBTechYT Went the docker route on my Synology. Agree the official version via a VM is fine... so why to do that ? Because, in my opinion, it makes storage space management easier : Proxmox Backup server reach directory on the NAS via mount point. There is no need to preallocate space (like you did with the second disk of 1tb). This way, the backup may grow, you only deal with the total storage space of the Synology and not the virtual disk space. Secondly, as the backup location is a standard directory, you can easily use Synology browse/backup/replication/snapshot/rsync/etc. apps.

[@MrDenisJoshua]

I wonder how to backup the Proxmox server... and not only the VMs please ... I can't find a video that explain this :-( Thanks in advance

[@DBTechYT]

Because I've got my Proxmox server running as a VM on my Synology, I just run a backup of the PBS VM to another NAS. I need to also set up remote backups, but that's what I've currently got at the moment.

[@MrDenisJoshua]

@@DBTechYT I have Proxmox (with all VMs) installed in a miniPC ... what I want is to make a backup of that ProxMox in order to have it if the miniPC will broke. Thanks again

[@DBTechYT]

Currently, there's no official way to backup a full proxmox host. The typical way to do it is just back up the VMs/CTs and then, when disaster strikes, you reinstall proxmox and then recovery your backups. That said, there are sort of "unofficial" ways of doing it. You can find more info here: forum.proxmox.com/threads/official-way-to-backup-proxmox-ve-itself.126469/ And here: forum.proxmox.com/threads/official-way-to-backup-proxmox-ve-itself.126469/ I believe there is a plan to make proxmox host backups a thing, but nothing official yet

[@primenetwork27]

I have a question how do I get back up pve configuration

[@jomijohn7068]

How to connects proxmox backup server over internet ( My Proxmox Server is in another location and Backup server is in another location ) ???

[@DBTechYT]

You might be able to run a TailScale setup for that

[@heromasum]

@@DBTechYT i think we need a tutorial on it

[@mkocht3014]

Ce que ne me plait pas dans tes vidéos c'est qu'on voit ton visage beaucoup plus que ce qui est affiché dans l'écran.. tes formation seront plus intéressante si c'etais l'écran de travail qui est affiché et non ton visage.