Should I self-host Backblaze Personal Backup?
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.
'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
unattended whole-computer backup · unlimited offsite storage · versioning & point-in-time restore · restore by mail (they ship you a drive)
* Percent of the subscription price. Your time is priced at the slider's rate — $0/h ("my homelab time is free and I love it") is a legitimate position. Every number is derived from the record, never hand-written. Price source, checked 2026-08-05.
Runs comfortably on a Raspberry Pi.
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
# 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.
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.