Should I self-host Backblaze Personal Backup?

NOT REALLYkeep paying

Backrest + restic is excellent software, but 'offsite' means renting storage anyway — and your backup of last resort should not depend on a server you also administer. The math never breaks even; the failure mode is losing everything twice.

The math (nothing hidden, including your time)

Backblaze Personal Backup (Personal Backup (annual))	$8.25/mo
VPS share + storage	−$6.30/mo
Your maintenance: 30 min/mo at $20/h	−$10.00/mo
Net saving	$-8.05/mo
Setup: 45 min measured (one-time)	$15.00
Break-even	never
Markup Index (price ÷ real self-host cost)	0.5×

What's your hour worth? $20/h$0/h = "my homelab time is free and I love it" — a legitimate position

Price: source, checked 2026-08-05. Inputs are stored in git; every number above is derived, never hand-written.

What you lose

'Unlimited': B2/S3-class storage for a 2TB machine costs more than the whole subscription
Restore-by-mail when your house burns down with the NAS in it
The property that saves you: your backup working does not depend on you having done maintenance

What you're paying Backblaze Personal Backup for

unattended whole-computer backup
unlimited offsite storage
versioning & point-in-time restore
restore by mail (they ship you a drive)

Backrest running from the boot-verified compose file — Backrest, running from the compose file on this page — screenshot from our verified instance, not marketing material.

Ranked alternatives

1. Backrest

A web UI and a scheduler over restic, so the backups you keep meaning to set up have somewhere to be configured and something to watch them.

garethgeorge/backrest · ★ 7,101 · last commit 0d ago · GPL-3.0

Hardware

Runs comfortably on Raspberry Pi.

The tested compose file (our evidence, CI-booted)

# Backrest — restic web UI (tested against Backblaze Personal Backup's job list; see the
# verdict for why your last-resort backup being a box you administer is the real problem)
services:
  backrest:
    image: garethgeorge/backrest:latest
    container_name: backrest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "9898:9898"
    volumes:
      - backrest-data:/data
      - backrest-config:/config
      - backrest-cache:/cache
    environment:
      BACKREST_DATA: /data
      BACKREST_CONFIG: /config/config.json
      XDG_CACHE_HOME: /cache
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "wget -qO- http://localhost:9898 || exit 1"]
      interval: 5s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 24
      start_period: 20s

volumes:
  backrest-data:
  backrest-config:
  backrest-cache:

Want a guided install instead? caniselfhostit.com/backblaze-personal-backup has AI-agent prompts that assume a bare machine — that's their half of the stool, and it's good.

Verification

Protocol v1 · verified by zernonia on 2026-08-10 · setup measured at 45 min · AI assistant: claude-code (allowed & stated)

What broke

Backrest itself booted clean — the verdict is about the job, not the tool
A restic repo pointed at local disk is not a backup, it's a copy; the offsite leg (B2/S3) is where the real monthly cost hides

Full timed log

# Timed setup log: Backblaze Personal Backup → Backrest

**Protocol:** v1 · **Verified by:** zernonia · **Date:** 2026-08-10
**Assistant:** claude-code · **Environment:** containerized runner, 2 vCPU class, Docker 29.3 / Compose v5.1

## Timeline

| Step | Time |
|---|---|
| Draft compose (one container; data/config/cache mounts) | 8 min |
| **Boot: healthy in 16 s (measured, `compose up --wait`)** | 1 min |
| Core workflow: create a local restic repo via the UI, back up a test directory, restore a file | 25 min |
| Re-run from clean volumes | 5 min |
| **Total: ~45 min** | |

## Measurements

- Boot to healthy: **16 s** · 1 container · idle RAM ~50 MB

## What broke

Nothing in the software. The break is conceptual, and it's the verdict:

1. **A restic repo on local disk is a copy, not a backup.** The moment you add the offsite
   leg — B2/S3 at roughly $6/TB/mo — you're renting storage again, from the same kind of
   company you were escaping, plus you now own the restore drill.

## Verdict-relevant notes

- Backrest is excellent for backing up **your self-hosted stack** — we'd put it in our own
  reference VPS without hesitation. The NOT REALLY is specifically about replacing the
  unattended, unlimited, last-resort backup of your personal machines.

Verdict history

2026-08-10: unscored → NOT_REALLY — Initial verdict: your last-resort backup shouldn't depend on your own maintenance discipline.