Backup system is worthless... (how to do a full backup?)

Installation
1

BACKUPS ARE WORTHLESS IF YOU CAN NOT RESTORE FROM THEM!

I installed a HA system on a cheap N100 Mini PC in late December. Configured quite a bit of stuff. About a week ago turned on the automatic backups and downloaded the first file it created figuring now I have a checkpoint I can restore from if the worst happens. Well the worst happened and that Mini PC died, can’t even read the drive from another PC. Grabbed an older NUC I had and loaded HA on it. At the login screen dropped in the backup, put in the key and it starts spinning. After quite a while of nothing happening I use the console to check things out. Looks like an error happened and the restore never started. Using command line try and restore the backup and it says can’t, it’s a partial backup. WTF!

So here I am setting things up from scratch. I figure first thing I’m going to do is get backups configured. But wait, there’s no way to create a full backup. So in short the entire backup system is worthless at protecting against catastrophe.

2

Use the Samba Backup add-on.

3

The Windows OS can’t read the contents of a Home Assistant drive. But, you should be able to use Linux Reader to do this. Then you could extract the \config directory and copy it to your new system.

The Home Assistant Google Drive Backup is also another alternative to storing backups in an alternate location.

Finally, you and I both have learned the hard way that the backup restoration process should be tested regularly to make sure it works before you need it. See some more info here about Disaster Recovery Planning

4

That would require the drive to show up. The drive died with the rest of the system. That’s what I get for buying an off brand cheap Chinese system from Amazon. To top it off it wasn’t even a M.2 as advertised it was Mini PCI. Had to order an adapter to try and read it. One of the PCs I plugged it into wouldn’t even turn on with it plugged in. Tried an embedded dev kit I had at work that actually had a Mini PCIe slot and it didn’t see it either.

5

In addition to testing my restore process, I also learned to keep copies of my backups in multiple locations.

6

I setup having a copy go to my Unraid server via NFS but the NFS connection keeps reporting issues. Going to switch it over to SMB and hopefully that works better. Still need to test the restore process on my new instance. Only so much free time.