Disaster Recovery: Protecting Your Work

You have spent weeks indexing documents and months fine-tuning your custom models. What happens if your SSD dies? Because everything is "local," you are responsible for your own safety net.

1. Backing up the "Brains" (Models)

The ~/.ollama/models folder contains two things:

1. Blobs: The massive 5GB+ files.
2. Manifests: The tiny metadata files that tell Ollama which blobs make which model.

The Strategy: Simply copying the models folder to an external drive is a valid backup. If you move this folder to a new computer, Ollama will instantly recognize every model you had.

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2. Backing up the "Memory" (Vector DB)

If you use RAG (Module 10), your ChromaDB or SQLite database is the most valuable part of your system.

• The Catch: You cannot just copy-paste a database file while it is "In Use."
• The Fix:
  1. Stop your Python script.
  2. Compress the database folder into a .zip or .tar.gz.
  3. Upload to a secure cloud storage (like AWS S3 or Google Drive) with encryption.

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3. Backing up the "DNA" (Modelfiles)

The most important thing to back up is your Modelfiles. These are tiny text files, but they contain the logic of your setup.

• The Strategy: Put them in GitHub. If everything else fails, you can rebuild any model in minutes if you have the Modelfile.

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4. The "Hot-Swap" Recovery Plan

For professional apps, follow the 3-2-1 Rule:

• 3 copies of your data (Production, Local Backup, Offsite Backup).
• 2 different types of media (SSD, Cloud Storage).
• 1 offsite location (Physical storage away from your office).

Recovery Exercise: Once every 6 months, try to set up Ollama on a brand new laptop using ONLY your backups. If you can't be up and running in 30 minutes, your backup plan is too complex.

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5. Summary Backup Checklist

• Modelfiles: Synced to Git.
• Blobs: Mirrored to an external SSD.
• Vector DB: Compressed and encrypted daily.
• Python/JS Code: Pushed to a private repository.

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Key Takeaways

• Modelfiles are the most critical, lightweight backup.
• Vector Databases require specialized "Offline" backup steps.
• Content-addressable storage (blobs) makes Ollama easy to mirror.
• A backup is only a backup if you have successfully restored it before.