Ask HN: Developer Workstation Backups

#1

Post by a2tech » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 1:02 PM UTC

What is everyone using these days? I used to be a firm believer in Crashplan for both my Linux servers as well as my Mac development machines, but Crashplan really doesn't play well with all the new automatic syncing stuff that Apple has (like fetching copies of your images and files only when necessary) and Dropbox's intelligent sync things. On my Macs Crashplan is always mired in some high CPU activity and consuming disk space. And they stopped supporting Linux machines that don't have a graphical environment (yes I know all the tricks for managing it remotely and they're worse).

So long story short, what are people using to reliably backup their machines without a lot of fuss? Most services don't support Macs or they don't support Linux, or they don't do infinite revisions.

Re: Ask HN: Developer Workstation Backups

#2

Post by Fell » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 1:07 PM UTC

The most important stuff is backed up by version control, obviously. For everything else I use Syncthing.

Re: Ask HN: Developer Workstation Backups

#3

Post by theandrewbailey » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 1:21 PM UTC

An external hard drive with Windows file history.

Re: Ask HN: Developer Workstation Backups

#4

Post by JohnDeHope » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 1:25 PM UTC

My workstation backup is a word document that explains how to quickly reproduce a configured workstation, given the usual sort of Windows fresh install we get from IT. This is useful because, far more often than needing a backup restored, we have new people starting, and established folks needing fresh clean Windows images because theirs are trash from 12 months of development. It's just a side benefit that if somebody's machine were to fall into a bathtub, we could deal with that, too.

All documentation and non-code files are in OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, or good old fashioned shared network drives. IT handles backing that up for us. $Deity bless them, we've never lost anything from a database or file storage.

Re: Ask HN: Developer Workstation Backups

#5

Post by aaron465 » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 1:26 PM UTC

I just don't store anything locally that I don't mind losing. If we are talking about software development then everything is tracked in git. If I'm still part way through some changes at the end of the day I will just `git commit -am "wip"` and push to a remote branch for safe keeping. Then you can rework the commit[s] locally before opening / flagging the PR for review.

Documents and stuff are all in google docs/drive or something like that, all my dotfiles / config is in a git repo. I even work like this on my personal machine which is also used for gaming. In case of failure I can just wipe the OS drive and start fresh without any worries.

Re: Ask HN: Developer Workstation Backups

#6

Post by jens-c » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 1:27 PM UTC

Fell wrote: post #2

The most important stuff is backed up by version control, obviously. For everything else I use Syncthing.

"Is Syncthing my ideal backup application?

No. Syncthing is not a great backup application because all changes to your files (modifications, deletions, etc.) will be propagated to all your devices. You can enable versioning, but we encourage you to use other tools to keep your data safe from your (or our) mistakes."

https://docs.syncthing.net/users/faq.html#is-syncthing-my-id...

Re: Ask HN: Developer Workstation Backups

#7

Post by s_dev » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 1:28 PM UTC

I run macOS on an iMac on an external SSD and then have another SSD connected to the machine that is a Time Machine clone of the first drive. The internal drive on the iMac acts as an emergency boot device.

Re: Ask HN: Developer Workstation Backups

#8

Post by bob1029 » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 1:28 PM UTC

Github and my organization's OneDrive account.

The actual computer/OS that I happen to be using is entirely not a concern for me anymore. Even accounting for installing VS2022, office, etc., I can go from zero to productive in about 30-45 minutes.

Fast storage and networks changed everything for me.

Re: Ask HN: Developer Workstation Backups

#9

Post by dusted » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 1:31 PM UTC

git, docker vim

nothing else, if my machine crashes, I just install linux, git and docker and jump back into it.

when the source has been checked out by git, I run the build script which fetches the build environment container for me, which contains the interpreters, compilers, libraries and other tools I need.

Re: Ask HN: Developer Workstation Backups

#10

Post by reitzensteinm » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 1:36 PM UTC

I went to restore an old Crashplan backup of my desktop PC before I started traveling. The restore hung for at least a week without downloading anything. I'm guessing it was put on something Glacier like due to age, but there was no indication of how long it was going to take to get the files, and I was left wondering if they even still existed.

Run, don't walk, imo. I swapped to backblaze.