Don;'t think you've read the docs correctly ... #5.
"You don’t want to lose your backups at the same time you lose your Moodle site if the drive fails. If you leave the field blank,
THIS NOT QUITE RIGHT: then backup zip files will be saved in the backup folder of each course files folder. That's sota what 1.9 did - not vr 2 nor vr 3. See ** below.
On a Linux server the path might look like: /home/(your user or domain)/public_html/archive/ or if it's below the publicly accessible folders: /home/(your user or domain)/archive/ if the path is not recognized a red X is shown after saving, otherwise a green check."
For designated ... note it says 'might look like' ... it's an example *IF* one set designated file area to "/home/(your user or domain)/archive/"
in config of autobackups
** Automated backup storage set to: Course Backup File area
Goes to sea of files in moodledata/filedir/
OR if you Choose the location where ...
is a path to an apache readable/writable directory ... the following is real on a Linux box:
like: /var/www/unirepo/autom35/
query of moodle databaes for backup files (which are .mbz ... not zips but gunzips [tar.gz's])
select id,filename,filearea,contenthash from mdl_files where filename like '%.mbz'
will render thusly IF :
id filename filearea contenthash
87 backup-moodle2-course-3-mshare-20180701-1938.mbz course 0daea4a8e907438a40c386f5fc271e93e05622d3
3391 backup-moodle2-course-1-mdl35-20181121-1225.mbz automated fdb7ef3f6794f066ca6e1f40bb92d3232869f83c
3393 backup-moodle2-course-2-sa-20181121-1225.mbz automated 09c638ac2f0296c682de0b143e747e5ed3aaeba4
3395 backup-moodle2-course-3-mshare-20181121-1225.mbz automated e0d16b66d0cceda33bf540d1d82c0fde57a3da61
3397 backup-moodle2-course-4-themetest-20181121-1225.mbz automated c7f218e13d0aff494e90bad606151c9a19996130
Because autobackups was set to 'Course Backup File Area', the file is stored in /moodledata/filedir/ by it's contenthash.
Take the 3397 file ... called backup-moodle2-course-4-themetest-20181121-1225.mbz in meta data (the DB) is physicially
in /moodledata/filedir/c7/f2/ and it's name is really c7f218e13d0aff494e90bad606151c9a19996130
** IF one setup a designated directory ...
/var/www/unirepo/autom35
then the files look like:
-rw-rw-rw-. 1 apache apache 7915775 Oct 14 06:50 backup-moodle2-course-20-test_2_1-20181014-0150.mbz
Uhhh ... me thinks the 2nd is better - designated directory.
Clear as mud? Gotta think on it a bit ... change config in your Moodle then look at the results to grasp it all!
'spirit of sharing', Ken