Backups that actually run

Every backup setup I have built worked on the day I set it up. Most of them had quietly stopped a few months later. This is the version that has kept going.

Three rules

It runs on a timer, not when I remember. It tells me when it fails, not when it succeeds. And once a month I restore one random file, because a backup you have never restored is only a hope.

daily    incremental, kept 14 days
weekly   full, kept 8 weeks
monthly  restore test, by hand

None of it is clever. That is the point.