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Basic block level vs file backup
  • Bogmosnster
    0
    Hi,

    Sorry for a basic question. I am trying to decide between block and file based backup. I am backing up a Windows 10 desktop. The storage may either be Backblaze B2 or SFTP, not decided yet although SFTP will be free storage for me so as long as there isn't a major disadvantage SFTP wins out. The files to be backed up amount to about 500GB of photos and documents - typical home user stuff. There are no VMs or Outlook PST files or stuff like that. There are a couple of large files (DVD ISO images of holiday stuff). There is little churn of most of the files files.

    At the moment I have tested with block and that is working OK. I read that if I use block I should do regular full backups. What does full backup mean in this context? I am guessing it does a complete backup of complete files that have changed since the last full backup (and ignores files that have not changed)? Is that correct?

    From a reliability perspective, is file level backup more robust? I am guessing with little churn on big files that block level does not have a massive advantage for me or am I miss-understanding how block backup works? I could see if you had a large file such as an Outlook PST file that just backing up changed portions would be good but this does not really apply to my situation as I only use webmail.

    Thanks for your help, BM.
    Bogmosnster Options
  • Matt
    91
    ↪Bogmosnster
    SFTP is considered to be a legacy protocol on our side, so I wouldn't recommend using it. It's provided "as is" with no guarantees.

    As for the block-level backups, you're absolutely correct, you need to run full backups from time to time to make sure versioning and purging are consistent.
    Full backup implies re-upload of any changed changed files, not the whole backup set. It works on a per-file basis, so unchanged files will not be re-uploaded.

    Block-level option is mostly beneficial if you have large files or using image-based backups, for plans with small files you won't really notice any benefits.
    Matt Options
  • Bogmosnster
    0
    ↪Matt


    Thanks for the quick reply. Sounds like block is the wrong choice for me. Shame about SFTP as this was going to be free storage for me :(
    Bogmosnster Options
  • Matt
    91
    ↪Bogmosnster
    Well, it's not really a "wrong" choice, if you enable it some of the larger files will benefit from it. You can enable/disable it any time, it won't affect your existing backups.
    Matt Options
  • Bogmosnster
    0
    Sorry, not in front of the computer in question at the moment so maybe I have my terminology wrong. I believe that a 'consistency' check or something similar can be run. Presumably this tries to verify that what is uploaded is all present and correct and not corrupt. How does this work? Does it compare hash values or something? Does it actually download any files for consistency checking? How big an overhead is this?

    BM
    Bogmosnster Options
  • Bogmosnster
    0
    Just did a bit of reading and apparently id uses MD5 checksums although a couple of posts I read say this did not appear to be working - albeit that post was a couple of years old. So, will MD5 consistency checking happen in B2 (assuming I schedule it to run - which I have). And if run, will it pick up all corruption situations?

    BM
    Bogmosnster Options
  • Matt
    91
    ↪Bogmosnster
    never seen any kind of corruption of data during uploads, but we do MD5 checksum for all clouds, including B2.

    As for consistency check, it updates storage usage in case the files have been changed outside of our software, nothing is uploaded or downloaded during the process.
    Matt Options
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