From rsync scripts to restic: what changed

My backup scripts worked for a decade: rsync with hardlinks, a rotation scheme, and a restore procedure I rehearsed twice a year. They also had sharp edges I had stopped noticing. Restic replaced them in an afternoon.

What got better

Encryption by default. Deduplication that actually deduplicates across machines. Snapshot listing that makes point-in-time restore a two-command operation. And prune with sensible flags, instead of my homegrown rotation arithmetic.

restic backup /srv --tag nightly
restic snapshots --tag nightly
restic restore latest --target /tmp/restore-check

What I miss

Nothing functionally. I do miss reading my own scripts and knowing exactly what they did -- restic's repository format is opaque, which is the price of the encryption. I offset that by keeping the restore drill quarterly and documented.

The rule I kept from the rsync era: a backup you have not restored from is a rumor, not a backup.