Context
I use Home Assistant Green with an additional network backup location hosted on an OpenMediaVault server.
My automatic backup configuration includes two destinations:
- This system (local storage)
- OpenMediaVault (network storage)
Both destinations are enabled, and encryption is configured.
What I observed
Previously, backups created automatically before updating an app (such as Z-Wave JS) were stored locally on Home Assistant Green.
At some point, I noticed that these pre-update backups were being stored exclusively on my OpenMediaVault server, even though I had not changed the automatic backup destination settings.
The backups themselves were successful, and the Supervisor logs showed no errors.
Investigation
Using the Home Assistant CLI:
ha backups list
ha backups info <backup_slug>
I confirmed that the pre-update backup was stored only on the network destination.
Its metadata included:
extra:
supervisor.addon_update: core_zwave_js
with_automatic_settings: false
I then discovered an additional setting:
Settings → System → Backups → Backup locations → Default local backup location
This setting was pointing to my OpenMediaVault storage rather than the Home Assistant Green data disk.
Solution and confirmation
I changed the default local backup location to:
Use the data disk for backup
I left the automatic backup configuration unchanged, with both destinations enabled.
During the next app update, the pre-update backup was successfully stored on Home Assistant Green.
This confirmed the relationship between the default local backup location and the destination used for pre-update backups in my setup.
Additional observation
If a backup archive is manually copied into “/backup”, Home Assistant may not immediately recognize the additional location.
In my case, running:
ha backups reload
refreshed the backup catalogue. The backup was then correctly displayed as available in both locations.
Conclusion
The important distinction is between:
- Automatic backup destinations: configured for scheduled automatic backups.
- Default local backup location: observed to determine the destination of pre-update backups in this setup.
This behavior was confirmed experimentally with Home Assistant Supervisor 2026.09.2.
I am sharing this because the distinction was not immediately obvious to me and might help others who encounter the same situation.