After tax season wrapped up, I found myself revisiting my home backup strategy. Years ago, I came across the classic 3-2-1 backup rule:
- 3 copies of your data
- 2 different types of media
- 1 stored offsite
It’s a solid rule of thumb—simple, memorable, and effective against data loss due to drive failure, theft, ransomware, or natural disaster.
What I’ve Been Using
Until recently, my setup looked something like this:
- Apple Time Machine backing up my MacBook Pro to a local network volume (a Raspberry Pi with a 12TB external HDD).
- iCloud syncing photos and files from all our iOS devices.
This setup technically gets me close to 3-2-1:
- Local copy (Mac)
- Local backup (Time Machine)
- Offsite-ish (iCloud)
But it’s not perfect. I don’t control the iCloud ecosystem. It’s convenient, but it’s not self-owned. And I want more automation, more control, and long-term durability—especially for things like tax files, client work, and personal documents.
The New Workflow
I’m keeping Time Machine and iCloud because they’re seamless. But I’ve added a parallel system that gives me full control:
1. Syncthing
All my devices (Windows, Linux, macOS) run Syncthing, a decentralized, open-source peer-to-peer file synchronization system. My Documents folders stay automatically in sync—real-time mirroring across platforms.
2. BorgBackup
My Raspberry Pi runs Borg to back up synced documents (and other important data). Borg is efficient:
- Deduplication: Reuses unchanged data blocks
- Compression: Saves space
- Encryption: Keeps it secure at rest
Borg creates snapshot-style backups—each backup is a full view of your files at that point in time, but under the hood, only new or changed data is stored. This makes it incredibly efficient for both disk space and bandwidth.
3. AWS Glacier Deep Archive
Once a week, the RPi rsyncs the latest Borg backups to AWS S3 Glacier Deep Archive. The cost?
Roughly $1/TB/month, so even backing up multiple GBs of documents and compressed photos comes to $12/year. That gives me true offsite, low-cost cold storage.
Result
- ✅ Windows, Linux, macOS files are all synced and backed up locally and offsite
- ✅ iOS photos are synced to iCloud and back down to my MBP, which flows into Syncthing → Borg → Glacier
- ✅ My documents are versioned, deduplicated, encrypted, and geo-redundant
Comparing Backup Types
Let’s clarify backup semantics:
- Traditional backup: Full copies or incremental changes. Often slow and storage-hungry.
- Time Machine: Apple’s versioned backup. Great for end-users but opaque and not portable.
- Borg: Snapshot-based, deduplicating, efficient. Transparent, portable, scriptable.
- Syncthing: Real-time syncing, not a backup per se—but fantastic for redundancy and protection against single-node loss.
This setup gives me full ownership, control, and visibility—without giving up the convenience of Apple’s ecosystem. Best of both worlds.
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