Backup

PVE Backup to a USB device

Some installations do not need or can afford a PBS. But as backups are the essential security you have for keeping your work safe from you and others, you may like this solution.

Nalle

Nalle

— 3 min read
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PVE Backup to a USB device
Photo by Markus Spiske / Unsplash

PVE has by default everything needed for making backups. For this solution you need a USB disk or even a USB stick could work as a short time solution, and it's cheap compared to a Backup Server.

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RAID is not a backup, it is for redundancy!

Setting up the Disk

  1. Plugin the USB, preferably to a USB 3 port for speed.
  2. Find the right disk and wipe it to make it ready for use with Proxmox.

Using a pre-Formatted USB Disk

By using this method, you can move the backups and downloads or whatever you want to have on the disk to a new location or a new machine. Especially useful to use when upgrading a system by installing it from scratch or for added security.

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You need to find the current name of the USB Disk by using lsblk, each time you plug in the USB Disk.

Then to use the pre-formatted disk, you need to mount it by this command:

mount /dev/sdb2 -m /mnt/backup

Change /dev/sdb2 and /mnt/backup to more appropriate names for your system

Create a Backup Directory

Go to Datacenter → Storage then Add – Directory and set it to store Backups only.

You might like to store other stuff like ISO too, but I prefer to only have backups on it.

Using a pre-formatted USB Disk

Create a Backup Job

Go to Datacenter → Storage and hit Add to create a Backup Job.

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