I recently decided to replace the SD card in my Raspberry Pi and reinstall the system. Without any special backups in place, I turned to rsync to duplicate /var/lib/docker with all my containers, including Nextcloud.

Step #1: I mounted an external hard drive to /mnt/temp.

Step #2: I used rsync to copy the data to /mnt/tmp. See the difference?

Step #3: I reformatted the SD card.

Step #4: I realized my mistake.

Moral: no one is immune to their own stupidity 😂

  • icanwatermyplantsEnglish
    1·
    4 months ago

    It really depends how you define reliability. SD cards are physically nigh indestructible, but can show failure when overwritten often. Hence for one off backups it’s actually a good alternative. It will start showing problems when used as a medium that often writes and overwrites the same data often.

    I would recommend backups on SD cards in an A/B fashion when you want to give a backup to someone else to store safely.

    • ShepherdPie@midwest.socialEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      Reliability in that I’ve used flash drives and SD cards for years but have only ever had issues with corrupt SD cards (probably at least half a dozen times) while I’ve never had any with flash drives.

      Constant writes is an issue with them, which is why I think it’s stupid that the Raspberry Pi Foundation continues to use them as the default storage/OS drive. Then again, they continue to make insane choices with power supplies as well, so it shouldn’t be a big surprise.