The Backup Layers, Explained by What Each One Survives
A reference of every backup layer in my homelab, what data it protects, how fresh it is, and which failure each one actually recovers from.
Practical technology, documented
Hi, I’m Tahir — a Senior Technical Support Engineer and homelab enthusiast based in the West Midlands, UK.
I write about troubleshooting, Linux, Docker, self-hosting, backups, privacy and the projects I build at home. Everything here is based on practical experience: what worked, what failed and what I would do differently next time.
About me · Explore my homelab · Read the blog
What you’ll find here
- Homelab and self-hosting — reliable services, networking and monitoring
- Backups and recovery — designs that are tested, not just configured
- Linux and automation — Fedora, Docker and useful workflows
- Troubleshooting notes — clear fixes for real technical problems
Latest notes
The blog contains step-by-step guides and lessons from maintaining a personal infrastructure at home.
Restoring an Application from Backup
What an isolated Navidrome database recovery rehearsal proved, how I kept it separate from production, and what remains untested.
Is My Homelab Actually Working? Glance, Gatus, Grafana and Useful Alerts
How I use Glance, Gatus, Grafana and Gotify to see what is available, investigate problems and keep security notifications useful.
Local HTTPS Without Exposing My Homelab to the Internet
How Caddy, CoreDNS and DNS-01 certificates give private services friendly names and trusted HTTPS without opening them to the internet.
What I Would Do Differently If I Started Again
The practical lessons I took from wiping my TrueNAS server and recovering years of family photos.
Using a Second NAS and an Off-Site Raspberry Pi
How my Raspberry Pi 4 backup is now running at a separate location, how the encrypted Restic snapshots reach it over Tailscale, and what the confirmed backup results show.
Testing a Restore Before Disaster Strikes
The restore checks I am using after discovering that a backup job completing does not prove the data can be recovered.
How My Restic Backup Protects the Homelab
What my Restic backup covers, what it does not cover, and why configuration backups are still valuable during a recovery.
Backing Up Immich Properly: Photos, Database and Encryption Keys
What I learned about backing up an Immich installation after rebuilding one from recovered media and database data.
Building a 3-2-1 Backup System for My Homelab
How local snapshots, encrypted cloud backups and a Raspberry Pi fit together, and which recovery tests have actually passed.