Do other Fediverse admins back up their media store?
A typical installation of Fediverse software such as Mastodon has a database that contains all the profiles, posts, reactions, etc. and a media store that contains all the avatars, photos, videos, etc.
The database is typically hefty but managable (~100gb) , but the media store is quite large. Even on a small instance like Babka Social, it's nearly 2 terrabytes, even with regular cleanups/purges of 2 week old content.
We do regular backups of the database through the provider, and we could do secondary offsite backups.
But backups of the media store would be quite challenging.
I'm wondering if/how other admins handle this.
Boosts welcome since I don't know the right hashtag for this question.
Serge from Babka
npub154…a48a2
2025-10-16 13:30:24 UTC
Author Public Key
npub154c44ftaz2d32lerjjwjw9tknvws2sj0j4t2kpufkt26jvu4upyqwa48a2Seen on
wss://relay.ditto.pubPublished at
2025-10-16 13:30:24 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "26a29d9d789c4eda1d487b047ba808233c5c9a8c6f356ad8549a779d8d003322",
"pubkey": "a5715aa57d129b157f23949d2715769b1d05424f9556ab0789b2d5a93395e048",
"created_at": 1760621424,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"proxy",
"https://babka.social/users/serge/statuses/115384085699764412",
"activitypub"
],
[
"client",
"Mostr",
"31990:6be38f8c63df7dbf84db7ec4a6e6fbbd8d19dca3b980efad18585c46f04b26f9:mostr",
"wss://relay.ditto.pub/"
]
],
"content": "Do other Fediverse admins back up their media store?\n\nA typical installation of Fediverse software such as Mastodon has a database that contains all the profiles, posts, reactions, etc. and a media store that contains all the avatars, photos, videos, etc.\n\nThe database is typically hefty but managable (~100gb) , but the media store is quite large. Even on a small instance like Babka Social, it's nearly 2 terrabytes, even with regular cleanups/purges of 2 week old content.\n\nWe do regular backups of the database through the provider, and we could do secondary offsite backups.\n\nBut backups of the media store would be quite challenging.\n\nI'm wondering if/how other admins handle this.\n\nBoosts welcome since I don't know the right hashtag for this question.",
"sig": "953eaef65ddaa0414ecb84701912da95b159bbfd1008dc7178e64434c18242eea0b8c299790368641136abba52bca037d8b334cf84919c23e595c0ee80b56ef7"
}