Volume Backups

A volume backup job connects to your server via SSH, creates a compressed archive of a directory, and streams it directly to your storage provider — no disk space used on the server, no temporary files on HetGuard's infrastructure.

How It Works

When a volume backup job runs, HetGuard opens an SSH connection to your server and runs tar -czf on the target directory. The output is piped in real time to your configured storage provider via a multipart upload. The archive lands in your bucket under a path like volumes/{job-id}/{timestamp}.tar.gz.

If encryption is enabled, each chunk is encrypted with AES-256-CBC before it leaves HetGuard's queue worker. Your encryption key is never written to disk on either end.

Prerequisites

Before creating a volume backup job you need:

• A storage provider configured and verified — see Storage Providers. Pro and Agency plans can use the included managed storage with no setup required.
• An SSH key added in Settings. The key must grant login access to the target server as a user with read access to the directory you want to back up.

Creating a Volume Backup Job

1. 1
   Go to Schedules → New schedule

   Click Schedules in the sidebar, then New schedule.

2. 2
   Select job type: Volume backup

   Choose Volume backup from the job type selector.

3. 3
   Choose a server and SSH key

   Select the Hetzner account, server, and the SSH key to use for the connection.

4. 4
   Set the volume mount path

   Enter the absolute path of the directory to back up, e.g. /var/www/myapp or /mnt/data. The path must exist on the server at run time.

5. 5
   Choose a storage provider

   Select the storage provider where backups will be stored. Managed storage (Pro/Agency) appears here automatically.

6. 6
   Set a schedule and retention count

   Pick a frequency and how many backup files to retain. When the limit is reached, the oldest files are deleted from storage after each successful run.

7. 7
   Optionally enable encryption

   Turn on Encrypt backups and enter an encryption key. The key is stored encrypted in HetGuard and used to encrypt each backup before it is uploaded. Store your key safely — if lost, the backup files cannot be decrypted.

Viewing Backup Runs

Click any schedule on the Schedules page to open the job detail view. You will see a table of every backup run with its status, file size, duration, and timestamp. Expand a row to view any log output captured during the run.

Downloading a Backup File

On a successful volume backup run, a download icon appears in the actions column. Clicking it generates a signed URL for the file in your storage provider and opens it in a new tab. The URL is valid for 60 minutes. No data passes through HetGuard's servers — the download comes directly from your storage provider.

Restoring from a Volume Backup

HetGuard can restore a volume backup directly to your server via SSH. See Restores for full details.