BorgBackup 2 has no server-side append-only anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: BorgBackup 2 has no server-side append-only anymore

#101

Post by lutoma » Sun, Jun 08, 2025, 3:56 PM UTC

JeremyNT wrote: post #97

homebrewer wrote: post #9

For anyone looking to migrate off borg because of this, append-only is available in restic, but only with the rest-server backend: https://github.com/restic/restic https://github.com/restic/rest-server which has to be started with --append-only. I use this systemd unit: [Unit] After=network-online.target [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target [Service] ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/rest-server --path /mnt/backups --append-o…

I'm curious if there is any reason to use Borg these days. I had the impression that in the beginning Borg started as a fork of Restic to add missing features, but Restic was the more mature project. Is there still anything Borg has that Restic lacks?

Borg is a fork of Attic, not restic. Restic is also written in Go while Attic/Borg is in Python.

For me the reason to use Borg over Restic has always been that it was _much_ faster due to using a server-side daemon that could filter/compress things. The downside being you can’t use something like S3 as storage (but services like Borgbase or Hetzner Storage Boxes support Borg).

That’s probably changed with the server backend, but with the same downside.

Re: BorgBackup 2 has no server-side append-only anymore

#102

Post by KingOfCoders » Sun, Jun 08, 2025, 5:16 PM UTC

lutoma wrote: post #101

JeremyNT wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious if there is any reason to use Borg these days. I had the impression that in the beginning Borg started as a fork of Restic to add missing features, but Restic was the more mature project. Is there still anything Borg has that Restic lacks?

Borg is a fork of Attic, not restic. Restic is also written in Go while Attic/Borg is in Python. For me the reason to use Borg over Restic has always been that it was _much_ faster due to using a server-side daemon that could filter/compress things. The downside being you can’t use something like S3 as storage (but services like Borgbase or Hetzner Storage Boxes support Borg). That’s probably changed with the server…

We used borg with the very nice people at rsync.net in two startups.

Re: BorgBackup 2 has no server-side append-only anymore

#103

Post by nine_k » Sun, Jun 08, 2025, 6:47 PM UTC

homebrewer wrote: post #9

For anyone looking to migrate off borg because of this, append-only is available in restic, but only with the rest-server backend: https://github.com/restic/restic https://github.com/restic/rest-server which has to be started with --append-only. I use this systemd unit: [Unit] After=network-online.target [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target [Service] ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/rest-server --path /mnt/backups --append-o…

While at it, what do you think about Kopia [1]? It seems to use architectural decisions similar to Restic and Borg, but appears to be much faster in certain cases by exploiting parallel access. It's v0.20 though.

[1]: https://kopia.io/docs/

Re: BorgBackup 2 has no server-side append-only anymore

#104

Post by nadir_ishiguro » Sun, Jun 08, 2025, 10:40 PM UTC

remram wrote: post #98

JeremyNT wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious if there is any reason to use Borg these days. I had the impression that in the beginning Borg started as a fork of Restic to add missing features, but Restic was the more mature project. Is there still anything Borg has that Restic lacks?

My number one problem with Restic is the memory usage. On some of my workloads, Restic consumes dozens of gigabytes of memory during backup. I am very much in the market for a replacement (looking at Rustic for example).

That's very interesting. Never had noticed anything like that. What kind of workloads are you seeing this with?

Re: BorgBackup 2 has no server-side append-only anymore

#105

Post by nadir_ishiguro » Sun, Jun 08, 2025, 10:41 PM UTC

ThomasWaldmann wrote: post #94

borgbackup developer here: TL;DR: don't panic, all is good. :-) Longer version: - borg 1.x style “append-only” was removed, because it heavily depended on how the 1.x storage worked (it was a transactional log, always only appending PUT/DEL/COMMIT entries to segment files - except when compacting segments [then it also deleted segment files after appending their non-deleted entries to new segments]) - borg 2 storage…

Thank you for borg

Re: BorgBackup 2 has no server-side append-only anymore

#106

Post by shelled » Mon, Jun 09, 2025, 1:26 AM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #103

homebrewer wrote: post #9

For anyone looking to migrate off borg because of this, append-only is available in restic, but only with the rest-server backend: https://github.com/restic/restic https://github.com/restic/rest-server which has to be started with --append-only. I use this systemd unit: [Unit] After=network-online.target [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target [Service] ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/rest-server --path /mnt/backups --append-o…

While at it, what do you think about Kopia [1]? It seems to use architectural decisions similar to Restic and Borg, but appears to be much faster in certain cases by exploiting parallel access. It's v0.20 though. [1]: https://kopia.io/docs/

After this time I must have tried Kopia (via KopiaUI) at least a dozen time and every single time I have never been able to figure out in one glance how it works. A brief idea I have is that you pick a folder and pick where to backup/snapshot it to. There is no (or at least an easy and intuitive) way to have a local backup setup of a set of folder, exclusions, inclusions, a config where you can decide the frequency, retention etc. I did try hard to find that out but nothing. I think it's their deliberate design choice and that's fine - but at least from usability perspective it's anything that is even in the direction of backup tools like restic/backrest, borg/vorta etc.

Re: BorgBackup 2 has no server-side append-only anymore

#107

Post by shelled » Mon, Jun 09, 2025, 1:28 AM UTC

cvalka wrote: post #73

homebrewer wrote: post #9

For anyone looking to migrate off borg because of this, append-only is available in restic, but only with the rest-server backend: https://github.com/restic/restic https://github.com/restic/rest-server which has to be started with --append-only. I use this systemd unit: [Unit] After=network-online.target [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target [Service] ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/rest-server --path /mnt/backups --append-o…

[flagged]

Here's a very actively developed GUI https://github.com/garethgeorge/backrest - imho it has come the farthest and is the easiest in terms of use and ease. I have tried too many other restic CLIs/GUIs and settled on this.

Re: BorgBackup 2 has no server-side append-only anymore

#108

Post by shelled » Mon, Jun 09, 2025, 1:38 AM UTC

seymon wrote: post #17

Borg vs Restic vs Kopia ? They are so similar in features. How do they compare? Which to choose?

restic with https://github.com/garethgeorge/backrest. I'd give second spot to borg (I use it with Vorta).

I tried KopiaUI couple of times, it's not something I want as a personal backup tool.

Re: BorgBackup 2 has no server-side append-only anymore

#109

Post by nine_k » Mon, Jun 09, 2025, 2:42 AM UTC

shelled wrote: post #106

nine_k wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While at it, what do you think about Kopia [1]? It seems to use architectural decisions similar to Restic and Borg, but appears to be much faster in certain cases by exploiting parallel access. It's v0.20 though. [1]: https://kopia.io/docs/

After this time I must have tried Kopia (via KopiaUI) at least a dozen time and every single time I have never been able to figure out in one glance how it works. A brief idea I have is that you pick a folder and pick where to backup/snapshot it to. There is no (or at least an easy and intuitive) way to have a local backup setup of a set of folder, exclusions, inclusions, a config where you can decide the frequency,…

Having dug into Kopia config today, I realized that much of this is controlled by a policy, or several policies. The fun part is that the policies live in the repository, there's no obvious way to have it as local files. It makes sense, I suppose, if you have a bunch of similar machines (e.g. workstations) that must follow the same policy, and put their backups to the same repository.

Re: BorgBackup 2 has no server-side append-only anymore

#110

Post by Ferret7446 » Mon, Jun 09, 2025, 7:58 AM UTC

fc417fc802 wrote: post #70

mananaysiempre wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both would be pretty expensive to actually restore from, though, IIRC.

Quite expensive, but it should only ever be a last resort after your local backups have all failed in some way or another. For $1/mo/TB you purchase the opportunity to pay an exorbitant amount to recover from an otherwise catastrophic situation.

If you don't test your backups, they don't exist.