As a recent adopter of ZFS (via Ubuntu) I am now looking for good off-site backup solutions and came across this article on the subject (7 years old!).
For many years I have been using rsync to back up file systems over the 'net to avoid redundant copies and avoiding copying multi-terabytes daily over WAN links. I use rsync for either WAN or local USB storage.
Being able to use ZFS snapshots as a backup source is a big improvement, but I am wondering if rsync is still the way to avoid copying the full file system over to the target with every backup. At first I thought the ZFS send/receive feature might do the trick but a quick reading shows this is not the case.
Is there a widely adopted "best practice" for this for ZFS or should I just stick with rsync?
Best Answer
If you have a ZFS target, I definitely suggest using a solution that can leverage the built-in ZFS transport features..
The best solution for me is Syncoid/Sanoid, since it can automate snapshot creation and data transfers.
See: https://github.com/jimsalterjrs/sanoid