Comment by imiric

> How often do you test your OS replication script?

Not often. It's mostly outdated, and I spend a lot of time bringing it up to date when I have to rely on it.

BUT I can easily understand what it does, and the tools it uses. In practice I use it rarely, so spending a few hours a year updating it is not a huge problem. I don't have the sense of urgency you describe, and when things do fail, it's an extraordinary event where everything else can wait for me to be productive again. I'm not running a critical business, these are my personal machines. Besides, I have plenty of spare machines I can use while one is out of service.

This is the tradeoff I have decided to make, which works for me. I'm sure that using ZFS and a reproducible system has its benefits, and I'm trying to adopt better practices at my own pace, but all of those have significant drawbacks as well.

> Have you actually tested your backup by doing a sudden, unplanned restore without thinking about it for three days before?

No, but again, I'm not running a critical business. Things can wait. I would argue that even in most corporate environments the obsession over HA comes at the expense of operational complexity, which has a greater negative impact than using boring tools and technology. Few companies need Kubernetes clusters and IaC tools, and even fewer people need ZFS and NixOS for personal use. It would be great if the benefits of these tools were accessible to more people with less drawbacks, but the technology is not there yet. You shouldn't gloss over these issues because they're not issues for you.