this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2026
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It’s so easy. I can’t tell you how many “backed up” environments I’ve run into that simply cannot be restored. Often people set them up, but never test them, and assume the snaps are working.
Backups are typically only thought about when you need them, and by then it’s often too late. Real backups need testing and validation frequently, they need remote, off-site storage, with a process to restore that as well.
Been doing this shit for 30 years and people will never learn. I’d guess 9 out of 10 backup systems that I’ve run into were there to check a box on an audit, and never looked at otherwise.
I was a professional, and I didn't have a backup of my personal system for about 2 decades. I just didn't have another 4TiB of storage to copy my media library onto. I'm now on backblaze, but there was a long time there when I did not have a backup even tho I knew better.
Also, even in a professional setting, I've seen plenty of "production support" systems that didn't have a backup because they grew ad-hoc, weren't the "core business", and no one both recognized and spoke up about how important they were until after some outage. There's virtually never a test-restore schedule with such systems, so the backups are always somewhat suspect anyway.
It's very easy to find you (or your organization) without a backup, even if you "know better".
100%, I honestly wasn’t trying for a holier that though attitude. Any snark was aimed at the higher ups in my professional life with that audit comment.
I too am guilty of having my personal stuff less than perfectly backed up. It’s better than most, but it is still not what it should be, so, that’s what I mean by it being so easy to not be backed up.
Thank you for this comment. I have backups I tested on implementation and rummaged through two years ago after a weird corruption issue, but not once since. I still get alerts about them, so I just assume they're fine, but first thing Monday I'm gonna test them. I feel stupid for not having implemented regular checks already, but will do so now.