# Best way to backup

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/best-way-to-backup/57768>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [August 11, 2016, 8:05am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/best-way-to-backup/57768 "2016-08-11T08:05:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![gringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f19dbf/32.png) [@gringo](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/gringo)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2016, 8:05am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/best-way-to-backup/57768/1 "2016-08-11T08:05:01Z")

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I have come to know two ways of backing up.

1. creating a repo and do backup
2. copy the data folder

Which one is better?

My understanding about method 1 is that I cannot find anyway to restore the backup indexes to another ES that is not on the cluster. Is this true?

I also notice that method 2 sometimes will corrupt the indexes

My usage scenario is to copy some indexes from the server to a Laptop so that I work on it at home.

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**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2016, 8:23am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/best-way-to-backup/57768/2 "2016-08-11T08:23:33Z")

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I use snapshot and restore to move data between clusters all the time, so it is certainly possible. I tend to backup into S3 as it is easily available, but you can also use a shared file system or even HDFS.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 10:28pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/best-way-to-backup/57768/3 "2017-07-05T22:28:34Z")

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