How to make offsite immutable backups affordable and recoverable
Immutable offsite backups protect against full compromises, but keeping them affordable often results in slow, painful restores that depend entirely on internet bandwidth. This forces teams to rely on local copies for large multi-terabyte servers just to avoid crippling recovery times.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Accepting slow restore speeds from offsite immutable cloud targets as a last-resort plan.Did this help you?
- 2Maintaining a local repository for fast everyday restores combined with immutable offsite object storage.Did this help you?
- 3Using turnkey solutions like Datto BCDR and Slide despite higher costs.Did this help you?
- 4Offer client backup storage as part of an annual maintenance and updates packageDid this help you?
- 5Set up automated daily/weekly backups using plugins like Updraft or Restic to external cloud storage like Backblaze B2, Wasabi, or Google DriveDid this help you?
- 6Keep local file copies on a dev machine and source control custom themes in GitDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“hosting mainly on WPEngine and assume that backups are safe there, but with increased threat level from AI bad actors wondering more and more if we should force clients to periodically download complete backups in case something really goes sideways.”source ↗
“I'm not a developer, so when you say test regularly what are you really recommending. BTW... most of my project are nonprofit related and don't have an ecommerce element”source ↗
“Most of my clients are nonprofits and don't really think about this.”source ↗
“We accept that resorting from an off-site immutable cloud backup target will be slow.”source ↗
“The local copy is not what protects us from a full compromise. It’s there so restoring a multi-TB server doesn’t depend entirely on the client’s internet connection.”source ↗
“Immutability is easy to put on a checklist. Keeping it affordable without making recovery painful is the hard part.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 4How to set up a reliable backup internet connection
- 4What is the best long-term backup solution?
- 3How to set up local server replication and redundancy
- 17How to use AI for accounting without breaking client confidentiality
- 3How to backup Microsoft 365 tenant configurations
- 3How to get laptops back from remote employees