Use MiaB as backup server?

Hi,
until now I used MiaB for email and occasionally for file exchange via own-/nextcloud. As a backup solution for my private data, I used CrashPlan. Now, however, CrashPlan announced to stop its service for non-business customers. Therefore, I thought about using MiaB also for the backup:
If I had a lots of online storage, I could use the nextcloud client to sync all my files with MiaB. Currently I have 40 GB of storage on my VPS, which is much too low and would need to be expanded. I could think of the following options:

  1. Find a provider that offers VPSs with lots of space and transfer my MiaB to it. (For example Time4VPS with up to 4 TB for less than 14 ā‚¬/month.)
    Pro: Pretty straightforward
    Con: MiaB in combination with Time4VPS seems a bit problematic (see Installation error & The VULTR 'Storage Instance' option )

  2. Expand the storage of my current install by mounting external storage. (For example via Strato with 1TB for 7.50ā‚¬/month.)
    Pro: I can stay at my current VPS-provider and simply expand the storage on demand.
    Con: Iā€™m not sure what might happen if the connection between my MiaB server and the external storage fails. For example due to server outage. (see Can we move MIAB mailboxes to a network folder? & Using S3 to store all mailboxes data)

  3. Unlock the admin account of nextcloud via the and mount external space via the web interface.
    Pro: Also pretty straightforward.
    Con: Joshā€™s warning that Iā€™m on my own if I run the script. (see Admin Login - OWNCLOUD)

  4. Run an additional, independent server only for nextcloud.
    Pro: Clean separation between MiaB and the file exchange system (especially since the file exchange system is an unintentional part of MiaB)
    Con: The need to maintain two systems, of which one comes without the out-of-the-box security settings of MiaB.

Is there an option I missed? Has somebody experience with options 1-3? Or is there a complementary project to MiaB that simplifies option 4?

I recommend going for a dedicated server. https://nocix.net is cheap and I have been their custom for about 3 years this month. Never had major issues, their support team lacksā€¦ personable skills, however they do get the job done. I have with them:

16GB RAM
2TB HDD in a raid fashion
4x Intel Xeon Processor @ 3.00GHz-ish (This varies on when you buy)
Unlimited bandwidth as well. (100mpbs which is plenty fast for me and my 20 users.)

This is at $25.month USD, IDK what that converts to for your country, but it is worth a look.

Hope you find a solution that fits your needs!

Using Owncloud/Nextcloud is not a backup! Whenever you delete something on the client, it is deleted in the cloud as well.

Better go for Arq with some dedicated cloud storage plus some local backups instead.

If you have only one computer to back up then Backblaze ($5/month per computer) is your best option. If you have up to 5 separate computers to back up I would still consider Backblaze to be a good option as you donā€™t have to manage anything yourself. Your time has value and paying a little extra for multiple Backblaze users will save you a lot of time, effort, and frustration.

If you have a bunch of computers to back up I would suggest running your own server locally that the computers back up to and then using Crashplanā€™s small business plan ($10/month, runs on servers just fine) to back up all that data to an offsite location.

The one thing I would absolutely NOT do is combine your mail appliance (MIAB) with a backup solution. Youā€™re combining two services that have nothing to do with each other and that are both very important to have running properly. Thereā€™s a good chance that a future upgrade to MIAB will bork your backups in some way which will cost you a lot of time and frustration. For the few bucks a month you might save (or not, depending on how much data you need to back up) it is definitely not worth it.

@nodomain There are Own/NextCloud clients that can be configured not to delete on server if deleted on the computer.

Still this is no backup. Backup storage != file storage.
See also https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/3e3t3p/is_dropbox_a_good_back_up_solution/

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Not disagreeing with that my friend - but some people are on a budget. And in a pinch, NextCloud could be viable for a personal backup solution, even if temporaryā€¦

Also WebDAV is a very viable way to do personal backups.

How about CloudBerry? Theyā€™re offering a discount to people coming from CrashPlanā€¦

Cloudberry backup is just a Windows client that allows you to manage your files in a CLOUD provider (mostly all S3 compatible providers).

A good combo is:

Cloudberry backup together with Wasabi backup (Minimum 1TB and the cost goes from 1Tb = 3.99 USD/ month)

Yes, Iā€™m just starting to look around and dig a little, because I too have been using Crashplan.

In case itā€™s important to anyone reading, CloudBerry have clients for Mac and Linux too (and servers).

Looking at their list of supported cloud storage services I see no mention of Wasabi. Iā€™ve no idea how all this works yet. Is this unlikely to be an exhaustive list? Is there any reason Wasabi would be incompatible?

(edit: the list is for the windows version)

By the way, just because nobody has mentioned it I feel I should say that people who are with Crashplan can move to Carbonite at a discounted rateā€¦

Was added on (latest) version 5.7.2.73.
BTW. see WEBINAR: Thereā€™s a New Way to Back Things Up to Cloud Storage: Announcing CloudBerry for Wasabi, Using Cloudberry Backup Application With Wasabi and Wasabi Partners With Cloudberry Lab To Offer Hot Storage Solution To Š”loud Backup Products

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Thatā€™s good information, thank you!

I may well end up going for what you suggested, I just need to look around a bit more firstā€¦

Sorry if Iā€™ve hijacked the thread. Iā€™m not sure about forum etiquette.

惄 Donā€™t worry aboutā€¦ Iā€™m here for help, too!
Additionally to the breaking 0.00399 USD/ Gb, one of the most interesting part of Wasabi offer is that they donā€™t charge for file deletion (as others like Backblaze, Amazon S3 do).
Hope this helps, too

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More great info. Thanks again!

Iā€™m now wondering why CloudBerry impose storage limits on certain products. They seem to be selling a product rather than a service, so it seems like an artificial limitation. Am I missing something?

The following table shows that only ā€œUltimateā€ has unlimited storage, and the rest are 1TB at bestā€¦

edit: I forgot the link to the table I was refering to:
https://www.cloudberrylab.com/backup/editions.aspx

  • Youā€™re understanding Cloudberry backup wrongly as itā€™s just a Windows, Mac or Linux client (just a program that will allow you to manage, schedule, encrypt, file versioning management ā€¦ etc your files). Has nothing to do about the amount of Tbā€™s you may wish to manage through it.
  • Wasabi is the CLOUD storage provider as already told before.

Thank you all for your input on this topic. Seems like Iā€™m not the only one who has this problem at the moment.
Following your advices, I stopped thinking about using MiaB as backup. Nextcloud as the only backup was also discarded.

In the end, I decided for a combination of Time4VPS as storage provider and Duplicati as backup program:
I setup a minimal Ubuntu 16.04 on Time4VPS with 1 TB storage capacity for 3.99 ā‚¬/month (if you pay for two years in advance, the price is lowered to 2.99 ā‚¬/month). The required steps to configure the VPS to accept ssh-based logins corresponds to the setup of MiaB. Therefore, everyone who is able to setup MiaB (pretty much everyone - thanks a lot!!!) should be able to accomplish this.
For backup, I then use Duplicati 2.0, which supports like CloudBerry a very wide range of protocols. However, unlike CloudBerry, Duplicati is open source and free. It can be installed on Windows, Mac and Linux. It can be configured using a nice web interface or via command line. I let Duplicati encrypt the backup before sending it via SSH to the VPS.

Thus, I have a consistent backup solution that supports all relevant operating systems, which is quite cheap, reasonably secure and easy to maintain. I prefer the fixed rate of Time4VPS over the adjustable and therefore less predictable pricing of Wasabi, however, Duplicati works also in combination with Wasabi.

In the original post, I asked whether a MiaB-like project exists that simplifies the setup of Nextcloud. Yes, it exists: Nextcloud-Snap. Unlike the docker-based Nextcloud image, it is pretty much out-of-the-box functional without the need to wade through configuration hell.

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Your explanation is how I understand it to be. Thatā€™s why Iā€™m confused by the necessity for the storage limits. I forgot to include the link in my previous post, so I edited it. This is the table I was looking at which mentions storage limits:

Also on this page (under "Compare Editions) it has a little explanation of the storage limits:

Storage Limits
(Data volume you can manage with CloudBerry Backup.
CloudBerry Lab doesnā€™t offer storage, you need to buy
from storage providers separately)

The limits are stated as ā€œDesktop Freeā€ - 200GB, ā€œDesktop Proā€ 1TB, ā€œServerā€ 1TB and finally ā€œUltimateā€ is unlimited.

I hope Iā€™m misunderstanding this, because I was keen on ā€œDesktop Proā€ for ~$30, but I donā€™t see why it should be limited to managing only 1TB. As you say itā€™s a client for which you buy a license, with the storage being independentā€¦

Iā€™m gonna look at Duplicati - thanks