I’m testing using Hyper Backup on a Synology NAS to back up to Azure storage. There are tons of articles about this online, but no one seems to be addressing how backup rotation affects storage. I’m posting this as a comment on this post but wanted to put it out there as its own post.
My current thinking:
- Hyper Backup creates a complex, interdependent structure of files and indexes in the .hbk folder, de-duping and updating each time you back up. As such, it needs write access to the entire backup set during each backup. Articles like this one that recommend moving part of the backup to the Archive tier make me nervous—I wonder if they’ve ever tried a disaster recovery.
- You cannot write directly to the Archive tier, so Hyper Backup cannot use it for ongoing backups. Use the Cool tier. (If you are doing a true archive of static data, never to run Hyper Backup again, you could move that to Archive.)
- The Cool tier charges early deletion if you delete a container before 30 days. But for ongoing backups with rotation, you never delete the Azure container; you’re only adding and deleting “files” inside the container. So theoretically, no early deletion cost? Would love to have this confirmed…
Update December 30, 2023
I’m coming to the conclusion that Azure is not a good option for Hyper Backup storage due to the amount of data that Hyper Backup downloads each month See today’s post, Azure is Expensive for Synology Hyper Backup Storage.