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  • Veronica Explainsveronica@explains.social
    Oct 18, 2026, 4:36 PM

    I conduct periodic fire tests where I literally just unplug the server and see what I can recover from my onsite and offsite backups.

    Literally- I pull the plug. That's not a euphemism, that is literally what I do.

    Even if you don't self-host, this sort of backup strategy is what makes sense. Like the photos on your phone? Turn off your phone, put it in a drawer, and get at the photos using a laptop or desktop. If you can't do it, you don't have a backup, and should correct that.

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  • Ölbaumoscherler@tooting.ch
    Oct 18, 2026, 5:51 PM

    @veronica I read that a lot. What I never read, though, is what “testing backups” mean.

    – Choosing a few files and restoring them?
    – Having a script choose a few files for you and restoring them?
    – Restoring the full backup to a spare machine and browsing it to make sure everything important is there?
    – Restoring the full backup to a spare machine and using that one exclusively until you find a file missing?

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  • Veronica Explainsveronica@explains.social
    Oct 18, 2026, 7:50 PM

    @oscherler it means getting your stuff back without the original.

    How you do that depends on the stuff. You'd handle a database differently than a bunch of text files.

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  • Veronica Explainsveronica@explains.social
    Oct 18, 2026, 7:48 PM

    @martin my take is don't automate all your tests- not for the stuff that matters. That should all be manually inspected on a schedule.

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  • Veronica Explainsveronica@explains.social
    Oct 18, 2026, 7:51 PM

    @ethorsoe Because you should pretend your original stuff isn't available to you while you test the backups.

    This is a stress test kind of thing, to make sure that if lightning struck the server and obliterated it, you can still recover.

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