What about block devices?

[lakemike]

Is it possible to use restic / backrest also for backup of block devices?

I have this storage device in incus:

  ix_virt_zvol_root:
    boot.priority: "1"
    io.bus: nvme
    source: /dev/zvol/tank-SSD/vms/HAOS
    type: disk

Would it make sense to convert it to .img and then run restic / backrest? Would this allow to detect the differential changes?

[garethgeorge]

Backrest is a https://github.com/restic/restic wrapper so these will be handled the same way restic does, and happily restic does have some support.

https://restic.readthedocs.io/en/latest/040_backup.html#backing-up-special-items-and-metadata

The only comment I'd add on to this is that block devices must be diffed, in their entirety, on every backup -- so I recommend trying this out and seeing if you find the performance acceptable.