I do restore my VMs to deplicate VMs to test from time to time (it’s pretty easy with Proxmox) but I use Restic for data backups which encrypts the data before uploading it, so one should restore a backup to a different folder to ensure the data integrity and that you didn’t forget your keys ahah

You don’t have to do it every week or month, but it’s worth doing it a few times a year or when you change something!

Pis consume lower power, but are less powerful also. I think thr Power Consumption VS Performance is way better on Tiny/Mini/Micros. The Pi4 may idle at 3-4W where a 8th gen USSF will idle at 6-8W, but will provide more than 2x the performance IMO.

I prefer paying almost the same price for a USSF with an i5-8500T than a Pi, even if it consume more, idle under 10W is great, and they let you go up to 65W if needed!

Personally I do:

• Daily snapshots of my data + Daily restic backup on-site on a different machine
• Daily VM/containers snapshot locally and on a different machine, keeping at least 2 monthly, 2 weekly and 2 daily backups
• Weekly incremental data backup in an immutable B2 bucket, with a new bucket every month and a 6 month immutability (so data can’t be changed/erased for 6 month)
• Weekly incremental data backup on an other off-site machine
• Monthly (but I should start doing it weekly) backup of important data (mainly documents and photos) on removable medias that I keep offline in a fire-proof safe

Maybe it’s overkill, maybe it’s not enough, I’ll know when something fail and I am screwed, ahah

As a note, everybody should test/check their backup frequently. I once had an issue after changing an IP address and figured out half my backups where not working 6 month later…