Proxmox Backup Server — Purpose-Built Backup for Proxmox Environments
Incremental. Deduplicated. Encrypted. Immutable. That’s PBS.
Proxmox Backup Server is the dedicated backup server built specifically for Proxmox VE — incremental, block-level backup with global deduplication, end-to-end encryption and immutable storage. PIP deploys and manages Proxmox Backup Server as part of complete Proxmox environments across Australia.
What is Proxmox Backup Server?
Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) is a dedicated, open-source backup server from Proxmox — a separate product and a separate installation from Proxmox Virtual Environment. It backs up QEMU virtual machines, LXC containers, Proxmox host systems, and Linux file systems through the proxmox-backup-client. Where Proxmox VE runs your workloads, the backup server protects them.
Proxmox Backup Server is designed to live outside the Proxmox VE cluster it protects — on a dedicated host, separate hardware, or its own infrastructure. Despite that separation, PBS integrates deeply into Proxmox VE: you schedule backup jobs directly from the VE web console, and every backup, retention policy and verification status appears alongside your VMs.
Incremental Block-Level Backups
The first backup is a full transfer. Every backup after that moves only the blocks that changed — so subsequent backups are fast, small, and light on bandwidth, even for large VMs.
How Incremental Backup Works
After the first full backup, Proxmox Backup Server transfers only changed blocks on each run. Subsequent incremental backups are typically 5–20× smaller than a full backup, which is what makes daily backup of a large estate practical.
QEMU Dirty Bitmap Tracking
QEMU dirty bitmaps track changed blocks at the hypervisor level, so incremental backups need no agent inside the guest. The backup client reads only what changed since the last backup — nothing to install on every VM.
Backup Performance
Because only changed blocks move, backup windows stay short and predictable. Fast backups mean you can protect production VMs more frequently without the performance hit of repeated full backups.
Global Deduplication and Compression
Data deduplication is global across the entire Proxmox Backup Server repository — identical data blocks from different VMs are stored once, not once per guest.
Global Deduplication
In a 50-VM environment sharing a common base image, data deduplication stores that base image data once — not fifty times. Deduplicated backups across the whole repository cut backup storage dramatically as the environment grows.
Zstandard Compression
On top of deduplication, zstandard compression shrinks each unique chunk before it lands on disk. Together they reduce the disk space a backup repository needs far below traditional full-backup methods.
Garbage Collection
Garbage collection periodically removes orphaned data chunks left behind by expired or deleted backups, reclaiming disk space safely without touching chunks that current backups still reference.
Encryption and Immutable Storage
Encryption happens on the Proxmox VE host, before any data reaches the backup server. Proxmox Backup Server stores only ciphertext.
Client-Side Encryption
The backup client encrypts data at source on the VE host. Encrypted backups travel to PBS already protected, so the backup server operator never sees plaintext backup data.
AES-256-GCM
Proxmox Backup Server uses AES-256-GCM authenticated encryption — confidentiality and integrity in one. Tampering with stored data is detectable, not just unlikely.
Master Key
An optional master key lets you recover backups if a per-job key is lost. PIP strongly recommends configuring one — it is the difference between a recoverable backup and a permanent lockout.
Immutable Backup Architecture
Backup chunks are write-once: they cannot be modified after writing. Ransomware that reaches the backup server cannot corrupt or encrypt existing backups — the data integrity of what is already stored is preserved.
Restore — Granular and Full
A backup you can’t restore is just expensive disk usage. Proxmox Backup Server restores everything from a whole guest down to a single file — straight from the Proxmox VE console.
Full VM Restore
Restore an entire VM or container to any point in the retention schedule. A full restore rebuilds the guest exactly as it was at backup time, directly from the VE web console — no separate restore tooling.
File-Level Restore
Mount a backup and pull individual files out without restoring the whole VM. File-level restore works across Linux file systems, so recovering one deleted file doesn’t mean restoring a whole machine.
Restore Verification
Restoring VMs is only trustworthy if it’s tested. Proxmox Backup Server verification confirms data is intact, and PIP builds scheduled restore tests into managed environments so disaster recovery is proven, not assumed.
Retention, Pruning, and Verification
Healthy backup environments are managed, not just configured. Proxmox Backup Server automates retention, pruning and cryptographic verification of every backup.
Retention Policies
Retention policies keep the last N hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly backups — configured per backup job. The data retention policy maps directly to your recovery and compliance requirements.
Automatic Pruning
Pruning removes expired backups according to the retention policies, then triggers garbage collection to reclaim the space. Expired data is cleared automatically, with no manual housekeeping.
Scrubbing and Integrity
Scheduled scrubbing cryptographically re-verifies every stored chunk of backed up data, catching silent corruption long before a restore needs it. Verification status for the last backup is visible in both the PBS UI and the VE storage view.
Integration and Scale
Within the Proxmox ecosystem, Proxmox Backup Server is tightly integrated — and it scales from a single host to replicated, multi-site backup.
Proxmox VE Integration
A PBS instance plugs straight into Proxmox VE as a storage backend — one scheduler, one retention policy view. The backup server and the hypervisor behave as one system to the administrator.
Remote Synchronisation
Synchronise one PBS server to another at a remote location for offsite disaster recovery. Replication between PBS instances keeps a second copy of backup data in remote locations, away from the primary site.
Tape and NAS Archive
Archive repository snapshots to tape for long-term offline retention, or target a Synology NAS via the proxmox-backup-client. Whether installed bare metal or virtualised, PBS fits the storage you already run.
Proxmox Backup Server Subscriptions
Proxmox Backup Server has its own subscription tiers, separate from Proxmox VE. The community edition is free and fully featured; a valid subscription adds the enterprise repository and Proxmox vendor support. PIP can bundle Proxmox Backup Server subscriptions into a managed service plan so your backup is run by Proxmox experts, not just licensed.
Contact PIP for PBS subscription pricing → · View Proxmox VE subscription pricing →
“Backup is the thing every client says they have under control until they need to use it. The pattern we see is: backup is configured, backups are running, but nobody has done a test restore. With PBS you can verify cryptographically that the backup data is intact — but integrity verification is not the same as a restore test. We build scheduled restore tests into every managed Proxmox deployment: automated, logged, checked. The number of near-misses that surface the first time we run that test on an inherited environment is not small.”— Brad Dixon, PIP
Backup done properly — with PIP.
PIP designs, deploys and manages Proxmox Backup Server as part of complete Proxmox environments. Whether you need a standalone PBS deployment or PBS integrated into a fully managed Proxmox cluster, talk to the team.