Secure Backups
Backups is a Cardinal Media Server feature: a scheduled job that copies your media off the server so you can rebuild it after a failed disk, a stolen machine, or a mistake. Secure Backups is Cardinal's own storage destination for that job, and it is what this guide describes. Other destinations are listed in the setup form as coming soon and cannot be selected yet.
Backups are for disaster recovery. A backup can be restored onto any Cardinal Media Server you self-host, signed in to the same Cardinal Account.
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| This page | What gets backed up, storage classes, setup, scheduling, upload speed |
| Security | Where the data lives, isolation, encryption, integrity, what Cardinal can and cannot see |
| Restoring | Getting data back, and the restore coverage that pays for it |
| Deletion and retention | Pruning, deleting a backup, cooldowns, subscription lapses |
What gets backed up
A backup is a named configuration on one Media Server: which libraries it covers, how often it runs, and where it goes.
| Setting | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Sections | Music and Photos. Each has its own switch, so either can be turned off without deleting the backup. |
| Libraries | Music backups cover the libraries you select. Photos are all-or-nothing until Photos libraries ship. |
| What runs | The first run uploads everything. Every run after that uploads only files that are new or changed, so ongoing runs are small. |
| What does not run | Files outside the selected libraries, and files the Media Server has not indexed. |
Each completed run produces a snapshot — a point-in-time list of every file in the backup. Restores target a snapshot, not individual files.
Choosing a storage class
Two storage classes are available, and you pick one when you create the backup. The choice is locked after that.
| Storage class | What you get | Stored in |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | The default. Restores draw on your restore coverage at the ordinary rate. | North America |
| Long term storage | Cheaper to keep, because it is built for data you store and rarely read. Restores from it consume more of your coverage, so the "restorable now" figures shown for the backup are smaller. | Canada |
Both classes are encrypted at rest and reached the same way. The difference is cost and how far your restore coverage stretches, not how well the data is protected. Where your data lives covers the storage itself.
Setting up a backup
In the Admin Dashboard, go to Cloud Services and find the Secure Backups card. You must be signed in to your Cardinal Account first; this is the same prerequisite described in the Remote Access guide.
Turn the card on, then use its setup action. The form asks for:
- A name for the backup.
- A schedule (see below).
- The libraries to include.
- A destination — Cardinal Secure Backups.
- Long term storage, off by default. Turning it on is permanent for that backup.
- Encryption, off by default. Turning it on is where the passphrase and recovery kit are set. Read end-to-end encryption before you decide.
The first run starts immediately after setup finishes, and it is the long one — everything in the selected libraries has to go up once.
The schedule
The schedule is a sentence with two dropdowns:
Run every [ 1 – 12 ] [ hours | days | weeks | months ]
Fig. 1 — the schedule format
Hourly schedules are inexpensive: a run with nothing new to send uploads nothing.
Automatic backup time is on by default, and derives the time of day from when the schedule was saved — a weekly backup set up on a Sunday evening keeps running Sunday evenings, and the card shows the time it computed. Turning the switch off reveals a time field so you can pick the hour yourself. That option is available for daily and slower schedules; hourly schedules have no time of day to set.
Each server also applies a small fixed offset of its own, up to fifteen minutes, so that popular times do not put every server in the world on the wire at once.
If the server was switched off when a run was due, one catch-up run is queued shortly after it starts again, and the schedule re-anchors from there.
Upload speed limit
A backup run uploads several files at once, and left alone it will use as much of your connection's upload capacity as it can get. On a home connection that is usually felt somewhere else — a video call that starts stuttering, a game that lags — so Cardinal limits it by default.
The control is in the Backup Status drawer on the Secure Backups card.
| What to know | |
|---|---|
| Default | On, at 5 MB/s |
| What it covers | The whole backup run. A run uploading four files at once shares the one limit between them; it does not get 5 MB/s per file. |
| What it does not cover | Restores. Downloads run at whatever speed your connection gives them, whether the limit is on or off. |
| Units | Megabytes per second, the same unit the backup's size is shown in. Multiply by 8 for a rough megabits-per-second figure: 5 MB/s is about 40 Mbps. |
| Range | 1 to 1000 MB/s. |
Turn the switch off and backups upload as fast as the connection and the service allow. That is the right choice on a connection with capacity to spare, or on a server that has nothing else to compete with — and it is the fastest way through the long first run.
A change takes effect on the next run. A backup that is already running keeps the speed it started with.
Backups are not sync
Secure Backups is a backup product, not a file-sync product. The distinction has practical consequences:
- Deleting a file locally does not delete it from your backups. It stays in every snapshot taken while it existed, until those snapshots age out of retention.
- Deleting a backup does not touch your local files, and restoring never removes anything from the target.
- Snapshots are point-in-time. Restoring gives you the library as it was when that snapshot ran, merged into what is already on disk.
- Changes do not propagate between servers. Restoring to a second Media Server copies files across once; it does not keep the two in step afterwards.
Getting data back
Restores start from the Restore button on the Secure Backups card, on any Media Server signed in to the same Cardinal Account. How much you can restore at a time is governed by your restore coverage. Both are covered in Restoring.
Related guides
- Cardinal Account — the account Secure Backups is tied to
- Remote Access — the cloud login prerequisite, explained in context
- Jobs — where backup and restore progress is reported
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