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The 3-2-1 rule says to keep 3 copies of your data, on 2 different media, with 1 of them offsite. 3to1go gives you two copies: your live files and Central’s snapshots. The third copy is always up to you.

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Getting the third copy

Copy Central’s backup folder somewhere independent of Central. Where Central runs decides which copy is your offsite one:

Central is local

Central runs on a home NAS or server for fast access. Sync its backup folder to offsite storage. That synced copy is both your third copy and your offsite one.

Central is offsite

Central runs on a VPS, at a family member’s place, or on another host physically separate from your Edge machines. Its snapshots are your offsite copy, but you still have only two copies. Add a third, such as a sync of Central’s backup folder to another disk or provider.
Running Central offsite does not give you three copies on its own. If Central’s disk fails at the same time as a machine, there’s nothing else to restore from.
Because Central only holds encrypted archives, you can run it on hardware you don’t fully control, and push its data to any storage without exposing your files.

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Where Central can store snapshots

Central writes encrypted archive files into its backup folder (/backups inside the container, set by BACKUP_DIR in Compose). Storage is accessed through ordinary filesystem operations:
  • Local disk. The default. Fast and simple.
  • Mounted NAS. Mount it on the Docker host and give Central write access. Central handles moves across filesystems when the backup folder is on a different device from its staging directory.
  • Removable hard drive. Mount it and point BACKUP_DIR at it.
  • Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive. Point BACKUP_DIR at the local sync folder. The desktop client replicates it to the cloud, and the provider only ever sees encrypted archives.
  • Object storage. Central has no native object-storage backend. Use an external tool to copy the local backup folder to your provider. If using a filesystem mount over object storage, verify that it supports Central’s file writes, listing, renames, and deletion before relying on it.
Central is not a sync engine. It just writes files, so any tool that can replicate a directory can handle the rest.
Keep Edge’s encryption keys independently of these copies. To recover the Central service as well as the archives, also preserve its signing key and PostgreSQL database as described in Install Central. A mirror can propagate retention deletions, so its history depends on the replication tool and destination’s retention settings.