Can I backup Round Robin? EX 3 PCs: A>B, B>C, C>A

general discussion
1

I like to backup round-robin: A>B, B>C, C>A
instead of A>D, B>D, C>D
which saves me a PC.

This means (I guess) I have to have Client and Server on each PC.

2

Depends on what is being backed up: files or images? including urbackup server in the image? The latter will like cause sync issues on restore.

Might work if it is purely files on each pc - think you would need separate ports for each urbackup server. It means you need to configure and maintain 3 servers though.

Urbackup is a fairly complex piece of software because it is client server. In my view it is probably not worth the effort given how easy it is to setup a dedicated backup pc.

3

Hi,

Aside from the excessive complexity you’d be adding (as per @GilesP mentioning needing to maintain three server instances) it would mean a few other things:

  1. Each system would need to have a pretty hefty amount of storage, to be able to store the backups for the its client…
  2. You would need to ensure that SystemA’s backup storage repository is excluded from the backup selection on its backup server (same things for SystemB and for SystemC) otherwise the backups will grown exponentially…
  3. This would only work if the systems all live within the same environment/networks, as if they’re user clients (particularly if a laptop or otherwise taken remote) the other systems will lose sight of it - mot to mention the added headaches about playing with PAT in addition to NAT for the traffic…
  4. Why…? Just, why…? Storage is relatively cheap, throwing some TBs of disk at a 4th system will be cheaper [in terms of getting lower capacity, but more parts] than having three hosts…then the host doesn’t really have to have much grunt and it should just work…

Am sure there could be a few “use case” scenarios when having multiple UrBackup hosts can make sense, just that I don’t see it for what you are indicating as just trying to save a bit of money…

4

First it would be files, not images. Mostly pictures, bookmarks and a small amount of documents.

Round Robin is definitely out.

I have 2 win10 PC’s and a plethora of XP boxes from a neural network project I started 20 years ago. Also some Vista, Me and 7 in there too.

Would it be feasible to use any of this older stuff as a server?

5

Would probably be an option to use one of the old bits as the UrBackup server, though you’re probably going to be best off to have it running a Linux version with the GUI off to save resource requirements…