My friend has an unraid server where he has the arr stack for streaming and immich for pictures and we were wondering what a good 3-2-1 backup strategy would look like? I have tried to google but most of the guides are not unraid specific and the few discussions found on here and reddit usually talk about duplicacy which has a monthly fee from what I understand, which we were trying to avoid.

Unless your important content is really small and fits in one of the cloud providers' free tiers nothing will be free, you'll either pay for your own storage (external drives, backup server...) or for someone to store it for you (cloud)

Edited November 13, 20241 yr by Kilrah

@Kilrah I just want to know what is usually backed up. Is it everything on the server or is it just the flash drive and the appdata? What is needed for a 3-2-1 backup on Unraid?

What I backup in my 3-2-1 scheme is for the the stuff that can not be recovered from other sources--- Personal pictures and 'movies', personal data and records, PC images, software keys.  My PC is primary, Unraid is secondary, and a HD in a Safety Deposit Box is tertiary.  (The safety deposit box is optional.  An HD in a trusted friend's home would be a 'free' option...)   In my case, a 1TB 2.5" USB external HD is enough storage space.

Well the "3-2-1" method is about how to store what you consider important, what that is isn't part of it...

 

For unraid you'd want to back up the flash indeed, but that's the only unraid-specific thing. I run a bunch of containers with services I use and rely on to store valuable data so to me appdata is crucial, but some people don't care. Other data - only you know what's worth spending to back up.