Backup Windows computers with Scale

[CheeryFlame]

Hi there, I would like to backup my Windows computers on my server.

This post is a discussion around backup methods even though I asked a question at the end.

I would like to find the middle ground between;

• Minimizing overhead
• Easily restore backups
• Keep working upon reboot and updates
• Free

I did a lot of research and found many options which all had drawbacks;

• BackupPC: Project is abandoned
• Kopia: Requires app on client / Can't choose multiple folders
• cwRsync/rsync: Requires app on client
• Deltacopy: Requires app on client
• Robocopy/smb: Good idea but complicated to restore backup
• Duplicati: Requires app on client / Unreliable backups
• Borg: CLI only

I came up with 2 ideas which both seems to be working so far.

---

1. Duplicacy

I'm running Duplicacy in Kubernetes' Scale. I share the local hard drives of my Windows computers with SMB and mount these to Scale.

Code:

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/smb/wnt/c

Code:

sudo mount.cifs //0.0.0.0/C /mnt/smb/wnt/c -o username=CHANGETHIS,password=CHANGETHIS

Then I had those paths with Host Path in the app Edit page.

Code:

/mnt/smb/wnt/c

I'm now able to backup all my computers with a single Duplicacy license.

Pros:

• Reliable incremental backups
• Easy restore process
• Comprehensive webui
• Easy to configure
• Logs

Cons:

• Paid
• Must add CIFS mounts on host
• CIFS shares not persistent after reboot

---

2. Scale Cloud Sync Tasks + FTP server

I've followed this tutorial to setup an FTP server on Windows which is very easy to do. It's great since it's a native feature of Windows.

Then I add them in Scale > Credentials > Backup Credentials.

Now I'm able to create the backup tasks in Scale > Data Protection > Cloud Sync Tasks.

Pros:

• Free
• No app required on Scale
• No CIFS shares to mount on Scale
• Easy to configure

Cons:

• Must run FTP server on Windows computers
• Complicated restore process
• Limited UI and logs

---

I was really deceived when I saw that Scale doesn't have the ability to create an Rsync task from a local directory to a local directory. This is a bummer. Instead of using FTP and Cloud Sync Tasks, it would've been better to mount the shares with CIFS and use Rsync. This way nothing would've been require to be installed on the clients.

I haven't tested which one is faster between Duplicacy/SMB versus FTP yet, this might be the deciding factor.

Now I'm left wondering if there's an easy way to automatically mount CIFS shares after rebooting my server?

What do you guys think?

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Windows integrated Backup?

 

[chuck32]

Robocopy/smb: Good idea but complicated to restore backup

Why is restore complicated?

Now I'm left wondering if there's an easy way to automatically mount CIFS shares after rebooting my server?

Did you try adding the mount to fstab?

Did you look into init/shutdown scripts?

 

[Kris Moore]

A while back I had deployed the UrBackup solution via Docker container on my SCALE box. It worked pretty well, had it backing up Windows and OSX. Have you looked at it?

UrBackup - Client/Server Open Source Network Backup for Windows and Linux

www.urbackup.org

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Why not do Windows backups to SMB shares - one share per user - that covers the common case of "I need that three days old version of file X back". Retention, restore, all managed from the Windows PC. As an additional ransomware protection snapshot these shares on TrueNAS.

I use TrueNAS that way for ~30 Macs. Time machine to TrueNAS, snapshots, case closed.

 

[Kris Moore]

As they say, lots of ways to skin a cat :)

I've personally used Syncthing, direct SMB, iSCSI attached Volumes and UrBackup as various backup protection schemes for Windows systems. Just depends on your needs. UrBackup had a positive in that it did full system restores from metal, should your windows boot drive bite the dust.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

@Kris Moore Sure, sounds good.

Reading the initial post I just (like frequently in the past) get the impression that for some reason people tend to overengineer things in the Windows world.

1. It's just a desktop or laptop system used by a single person.
2. There should not be any valuable data on that system, anyway.
3. All data belongs on the file server, in Nextcloud, in Gitlab, in JIRA, ... IT takes care of that and the respective backups.
4. So if the PC breaks hand the employee a new one, log on to domain, all is good.
5. So backup of desktops is a convenience feature, anyway, to the benefit of the user, so leave it in the responsibility of the user to perform and manage backups - but do provide the infrastructure for them to do so.

That's my approach to that topic.

 

[CheeryFlame]

@Kris MooreReading the initial post I just (like frequently in the past) get the impression that for some reason people tend to overengineer things in the Windows world.

That's exactly what I was trying to do, less overhead/apps/third parties in the process. You've suggested Windows backup. If you read my post you'll understand that it's exactly what I was trying to do.

Are you talking about this?

Back up your Windows PC - Microsoft Support

Learn how to back up apps, settings, files, photos, and Microsoft Edge favorites and preferences on your Windows PC.

support.microsoft.com

I saw that resource but I ditched it since step 1 was: Sign in with a Microsoft account. I tried it on my PC and in fact there's no apparent way to not login to their crap. Also they're advertising OneDrive everywhere which I don't want to see advertisements of. I'm not interested in adware crap.

I don't want to create an account to backup a local computer on a local server.

@Kris Moore2. There should not be any valuable data on that system, anyway.
3. All data belongs on the file server, in Nextcloud, in Gitlab, in JIRA, ... IT takes care of that and the respective backups.

This is what I want to achieve as well and I was able to do it for a big part of my data. Thing is that my requirements are beyond what you have in mind.

• I need to automatically backup the projects I'm working on (video production), can't do it on NAS before I setup 10GB in my studio
• I have several arcade machines running LaunchBox and many configurations to the system that I want to backup automatically
• I have a local LaunchBox install with all the configurations (games on NAS) / required since I don't have 10GB yet
• When I end up a stream for work, I want to automatically backup the recording (at midnight) to a specified folder so that it appears automatically in my customer's client area.

The backups solutions can do all of this, perhaps my initial post wasn't precise enough.

UrBackup - Client/Server Open Source Network Backup for Windows and Linux

www.urbackup.org

I forgot about this one, but I looked into it yesterday and it requires an app on client which I prefer not.

Why is restore complicated?

Bad wording. Should have been restore more complicated than Duplicacy for example.

Did you try adding the mount to fstab?
Did you look into init/shutdown scripts?

Those are great ideas! I think I'll write a bash script and put it in /etc/init.d/. Unfortunately that wont persist upon system updates. Still better than manually doing it!

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

@CheeryFlame I apologize. My Windows knowledge tends to get more and me outdated since Windows 11 was published it seems. Windows 7 came with a perfectly capable backup solution than worked locally to a share or an external disk drive. Windows 10 offered that same solution as an option. Seems like it's gone in Windows 11 and only cloud backup remains. Morons. Apple would not dare do that.

Renowned german publisher Heise recommends https://www.ubackup.com/
I don't have any experience with that, but I would give it a try.

We only have virtualised Windows installations so we just snapshot entire machines. ZFS, differential snapshots, something something ...

 

[winnielinnie]

I bet their "utopia" is to get rid of personal computers and local storage entirely, and essentially everyone will be using a "thin client" with a NIC card: everything will be done over the cloud.

 

[CheeryFlame]

I bet their "utopia" is to get rid of personal computers and local storage entirely, and essentially everyone will be using a "thin client" with a NIC card: everything will be done over the cloud.

Man, this is disastrous to read xD. Self hosting is the best thing I discovered in 2023.

 

[Stux]

I use Veeam backup targeting an SMB share

Works well.

Free Windows Backup Solution for PCs and Endpoints

Simple and free Windows backup for cloud and physical servers, desktops, endpoints and more. Protect Windows workloads with Veeam Agent for Windows!

www.veeam.com

 

[sfatula]

I bet their "utopia" is to get rid of personal computers and local storage entirely, and essentially everyone will be using a "thin client" with a NIC card: everything will be done over the cloud.

Don't forget, for a monthly fee...

 

[CheeryFlame]

I use Veeam backup targeting an SMB share

Works well.

Free Windows Backup Solution for PCs and Endpoints

Simple and free Windows backup for cloud and physical servers, desktops, endpoints and more. Protect Windows workloads with Veeam Agent for Windows!

www.veeam.com

I always thought Veeam was a premium paid product. I just read that it can do full image recovery backup that is bootable. This is actually what would be best for my arcades since once they're setup, I'll rarely update it. It would be really practical to be able to dump the whole thing and restore if something breaks. I initially looked at Deepfreeze which has restore at reboot. Although it was a paid application. Glad you told me about Veeam. If I like it on the arcade and feel like it's lightweight, maybe I could drop Duplicacy and use this instead, I see it can do file based backups too.

 

[Redcoat]

My wife and I have been backing up our 3 Windows machines to TrueNAS with Veeam Free - been working like a charm. One full box restore, some individual file restores, each without drama.

 

[Stux]

I always thought Veeam was a premium paid product. I just read that it can do full image recovery backup that is bootable. This is actually what would be best for my arcades since once they're setup, I'll rarely update it. It would be really practical to be able to dump the whole thing and restore if something breaks. I initially looked at Deepfreeze which has restore at reboot. Although it was a paid application. Glad you told me about Veeam. If I like it on the arcade and feel like it's lightweight, maybe I could drop Duplicacy and use this instead, I see it can do file based backups too.

Yeah. A premium product, free as in beer. Its really a promotion for their backup server, but you need the clients to make a backup server useful... and they allow you to target your NAS.

So, you can easily back up your computer to an external hard drive, network-attached storage (NAS) share or a Veeam Backup & Replication repository.


Also supports incremental backup, and yes, you can recover a single file from the backup.

 

[PhilD13]

As they say, lots of ways to skin a cat :)

I've personally used Syncthing, direct SMB, iSCSI attached Volumes and UrBackup as various backup protection schemes for Windows systems. Just depends on your needs. UrBackup had a positive in that it did full system restores from metal, should your windows boot drive bite the dust.

For our windows computers backups, I use SyncBackPro and wife uses Genie backup to SMB shares on Truenas. My question out of curiosity on the subject of backups and what to use is Why is a client server backup app like UrBackup, or other client server backup options not offered on Truenas?