Proxmox Backup Server is excellent for local VM snapshots and deduplication. But local backups aren't offsite backups. ServerCrate gives your Proxmox environment an encrypted offsite target via Restic over SFTP - protecting VM configs, LXC data, and critical files in a separate physical location.
A typical Proxmox homelab or small business setup uses Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) for VM and container snapshots. PBS is excellent - it handles deduplication efficiently, integrates with the Proxmox UI, and makes restoring VMs straightforward. But PBS is usually on the same physical hardware, or at best on the same local network.
That means a single event - power surge, drive failure, theft, house fire, or flooding - can take out both your Proxmox host and your PBS backup simultaneously. For a true offsite backup, you need your data stored in a physically separate location.
ServerCrate fills that gap: a remote encrypted vault in Los Angeles that receives your critical Proxmox data via Restic, independent of your local infrastructure.
For most Proxmox homelab setups, the full VM disk images are too large to back up offsite with Restic efficiently. Instead, the practical approach is to use PBS for full VM snapshots locally, and use Restic to back up the things that are most painful to lose or rebuild:
Install Restic on the Proxmox host or inside a dedicated LXC container, then configure it to back up critical paths to your ServerCrate vault.
For LXC containers running services you care about - databases, web apps, monitoring stacks - you can back up the container's data directory directly from the Proxmox host, or run Restic inside the container itself.
Running Restic inside the container is often cleaner, especially if the container has application-specific pre-backup hooks (like running a database dump before the backup). Each container gets its own Restic repository or you can multiplex multiple containers into one vault using different backup paths.
The recommended three-tier backup strategy for Proxmox homelab environments:
Tier 3 via ServerCrate is where most homelab setups benefit most - it's the fastest to implement, requires no additional hardware, and ensures your most critical configs and data survive any single-site disaster.
For most Proxmox setups backing up configs, secrets, and application data (rather than full disk images), the Starter or Standard plan is sufficient.
Once Restic is configured on your Proxmox host, automate it with a systemd timer. Create /etc/systemd/system/restic-offsite.service that sources credentials and runs the backup, plus a matching .timer with OnCalendar=daily and Persistent=true. The Persistent flag is important for homelab setups where the host may not run 24/7 - the backup fires on next boot if it missed the window. See the systemd timer guide for full unit file examples.
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