Need Help For Home Storage Solution

[Syncenator]

Hello everyone!

 

I am looking for advise for a good and cheap budget way to safely store all my data and also have access to it whenever I am using my PC and maybe also via smartphone.

 

At the moment I am doing it on a suboptimal way by using two separate 2 TB drives in my gaming pc, where I use the second one as backup drive in case of a drive failure. My original plan was to run them in a Raid 1 mirror, but after reading a bit into it and often reading that it could go wrong and break everything, if you are very unlucky and I didn't really want to take that risk. Therefore I decided to just mirror the files once a week or two and turn off the SATA port of the backup drive in the bios after I am done. I know it is a very strange way and not secure against anything else than a simple drive failure of the main drive. If anyone is wondering why I didn't just get a 2TB USB drive and do backups on it, it's just that I already had the second SATA drive, before I realized that I didn't want to do a Raid 1 mirror and I am also not a big fan of having to get the USB drive and plug it in and off again put it away, whenever I want to do a backup.

 

Since the way I just mentioned is not really optimal and I might also want to reduce the amount of drives in my PC, I already thought about different solutions for my home storage, but I am unsure which one is the best and makes sense and hope that I could maybe get some help and advise. I also want to add that I am fully aware that a Raid or anything similar is not a backup, but in my case I mostly just want to secure my data from a simple drive failure.

 

My ideas:

1. Get a cheap used Office PC with something like an i3 and enough SATA ports from Ebay and use it as some kind of NAS with Unraid or something, where I could also easily add another 2TB drive, if needed in the future
2. Get a 2 TB USB HDD and plug it into one of my FritzBox routers and use it as a network drive, so I could back up my data on there, remove the second drive in my PC and have 24/7 access
3. Get a Raspberry Pi 4 and use it as something like a Cloud or NAS
4. Somehow build a cheap NAS with hardware that doesn't consume a lot of energy

 

Problems:

1. I can probably run the Office PC only whenever I need it, like when I am using my PC because of the high electricity cost here in Germany, which will add up over time and would make it super expensive
2. Both of my FritzBox routers only have a USB 2.0 ports and might be a little slow for bigger transfers
3. Every solution, except the Unraid one is difficult to upgrade to more drives in the future with having some kind of protection
4. I assume building an energy friendly NAS is probably the most expensive solution

 

Please feel free to add any ideas or suggestions and I already want to thank everyone who is helping me out!

[Pixel5]

first step is to actually look at your data and see what really needs to be backed up.

2TB is not that much overall but realistically the actual important data is far less and by important data i mean stuff you can not replace so for example any games are not important but their save files may be unless its already backed up in steam.

 

Once you know how much data you actually want to have backed up you can decide which way to go from here.

[Syncenator]

8 hours ago, Pixel5 said:

first step is to actually look at your data and see what really needs to be backed up.

2TB is not that much overall but realistically the actual important data is far less and by important data i mean stuff you can not replace so for example any games are not important but their save files may be unless its already backed up in steam.

 

Once you know how much data you actually want to have backed up you can decide which way to go from here.

The 2TB drive only contains all the important data and no games or anything else that I don't really need.

[Pixel5]

what kind of data are we talking about here, is it mainly pictures or videos or anything else?

 

depending on what it is it may be the easiest way to just get some cloud storage or if you have Amazon Prime you can already upload as many photos as you want in jpeg format.

[Syncenator]

6 hours ago, Pixel5 said:

what kind of data are we talking about here, is it mainly pictures or videos or anything else?

 

depending on what it is it may be the easiest way to just get some cloud storage or if you have Amazon Prime you can already upload as many photos as you want in jpeg format.

Almost all types of data, like photos, videos, textfiles, documents, project files etc. 

 

You mean renting cloud storage? But that is probably very expensive for 2TB over time and it takes a long time to upload the existing 2TB. Also very interesting I didn't know about the Amazon Prime thing, but jpeg only is kinda useless.

[Electronics Wizardy]

21 hours ago, Syncenator said:

Get a cheap used Office PC with something like an i3 and enough SATA ports from Ebay and use it as some kind of NAS with Unraid or something, where I could also easily add another 2TB drive, if needed in the future

Id get one of those small form factor systms, there pretty low power, so that shouldnt be a issue, then Id put 2 8tb drives in or simmilar and that should meet your needs. You can run freenas or whatever you want.

 

 

[Syncenator]

58 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id get one of those small form factor systms, there pretty low power, so that shouldnt be a issue, then Id put 2 8tb drives in or simmilar and that should meet your needs. You can run freenas or whatever you want.

 

 

I read that an Office PC like that would use around 50 Watts most of the time, which would be over 100€ a year, unless you meant a similar system with other less consuming hardware. Two very big drives instead of many smaller one are probably a very good idea, but sadly it is very expensive to buy two 8TB drives at once, like it would cost as much as a CPU upgrade to a decent Ryzen with Motherboard & RAM and maybe even a case and it would be also very pricy to replace one in case of a failure.

 

It seems like it is very difficult to find a good solution without having to spend so much more money for electricity over a year. I don't know if it would make sense to just do it and turn it off whenever I don't really need it or if that is a bad idea or not even possible.

[Pixel5]

6 hours ago, Syncenator said:

Almost all types of data, like photos, videos, textfiles, documents, project files etc. 

 

You mean renting cloud storage? But that is probably very expensive for 2TB over time and it takes a long time to upload the existing 2TB. Also very interesting I didn't know about the Amazon Prime thing, but jpeg only is kinda useless.

i have the same problem as you that power is expensive so i bought a system from Synology that uses under 50W under full load with 4HDD´s.

the big question is how much you are willing to spend and regarding access to your files from your smartphone this will depend on the speed of your internet connection as all files would come directly from your own network.

 afterall the big question is how important are these files really and how often you need access to them.

If you rarely need them and they dont change often you dont really need anything else than an external HDD and thats it.

 

Also think about how important these files are and imagine your HDD fails and the data is lost, would you spend a few hundert € to recover the data?

 

If yes why not spend a few hundert right now to get a cheap synology NAS and avoid the stress if the drive fails.

[Mihle]

7 hours ago, Syncenator said:

I read that an Office PC like that would use around 50 Watts most of the time, which would be over 100€ a year, unless you meant a similar system with other less consuming hardware. 

Don't remember exact numbers, but my NAS that is a ITX mobo, G5400 CPU(not that powerful) and 2 8TB HDDs uses less than 50W on idle if I remember right. Don't remember exact numbers tho, I can check of you want.

 

Also if 50w constant really becomes 100€ per year in electricity then your electricity cost is Def higher than what it is where I live.

[paddy-stone]

You could look into buying a WD mycloud device, they are quite reasonable cost, and low power. I used one for a year or 2 before my usage needed more than it could provide.

[Electronics Wizardy]

13 hours ago, Syncenator said:

I read that an Office PC like that would use around 50 Watts most of the time, which would be over 100€ a year, unless you meant a similar system with other less consuming hardware. Two very big drives instead of many smaller one are probably a very good idea, but sadly it is very expensive to buy two 8TB drives at once, like it would cost as much as a CPU upgrade to a decent Ryzen with Motherboard & RAM and maybe even a case and it would be also very pricy to replace one in case of a failure.

 

It seems like it is very difficult to find a good solution without having to spend so much more money for electricity over a year. I don't know if it would make sense to just do it and turn it off whenever I don't really need it or if that is a bad idea or not even possible.

Should be much less than that, Depends on the hardware, but many systems will run at about 20w idle, which isn't much more than a nas box.

 

Could go with a synology though if you want plug and play.

 

 

[Syncenator]

10 hours ago, Pixel5 said:

i have the same problem as you that power is expensive so i bought a system from Synology that uses under 50W under full load with 4HDD´s.

the big question is how much you are willing to spend and regarding access to your files from your smartphone this will depend on the speed of your internet connection as all files would come directly from your own network.

 afterall the big question is how important are these files really and how often you need access to them.

If you rarely need them and they dont change often you dont really need anything else than an external HDD and thats it.

 

Also think about how important these files are and imagine your HDD fails and the data is lost, would you spend a few hundert € to recover the data?

 

If yes why not spend a few hundert right now to get a cheap synology NAS and avoid the stress if the drive fails.

I am willing to spend about 200€ maximum for now. I also already thought about a Synology NAS, since they are quite nice indeed, but the downside is they are not easily upgradeable, like if you need more than 2 bays for example. If I use my smartphone I just meant accessing it from at home not on the go, so the network speed should be fine enough for watching a video or checking out a photo or something.

 

The files themselves are really important and I would like to be able to access them whenever I use my computer, in case I want to check them out or work with them etc.

Talking about that makes me think about something. Maybe it could also be useful to separate the most important data from less important one and put the important one on an external HDD, since I will probably use it less than other data on it.

 

Since there are really important files on it I can never get back again then yes I would spend several hundred € to recover them in case something happens.

 

Like I said I already thought about it but the Synology NAS is not really upgradeable, if you want better specs or more bays you probably have to buy a new one. That is why other ways might be better that way, but I am not sure.

 

7 hours ago, Mihle said:

Don't remember exact numbers, but my NAS that is a ITX mobo, G5400 CPU(not that powerful) and 2 8TB HDDs uses less than 50W on idle if I remember right. Don't remember exact numbers tho, I can check of you want.

 

Also if 50w constant really becomes 100€ per year in electricity then your electricity cost is Def higher than what it is where I live.

That sounds very interesting, I wonder if the motherboard formfactor makes a big difference in power consumption. I also wonder what power settings you can set up for your own NAS, like can you set the drives to go on standby or something when they are not needed and the CPU to reduce the clock speeds whenever it is not used to reduce its consumption? Because that could probably also make a big difference over time.

 

Yeah, it's very expensive over here, like almost 0,30€ per kWh, so it makes about 130€ per year when running it 24/7 at 50w.

 

2 hours ago, paddy-stone said:

You could look into buying a WD mycloud device, they are quite reasonable cost, and low power. I used one for a year or 2 before my usage needed more than it could provide.

Yeah, I also thought about it, but it has the same problem like the Synology NAS solution, that you can't really upgrade it to more bays or better specs and then have to buy something new again.

 

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Should be much less than that, Depends on the hardware, but many systems will run at about 20w idle, which isn't much more than a nas box.

 

Could go with a synology though if you want plug and play.

 

 

That sounds more reasonable, if that would really be the case.

 

I thought about something like Synology or WD Cloud very often, but I don't like the feeling of not being able to upgrade it very well, if you need like more drives or better hardware for whatever reason over the years.

 

I wonder how I can somehow check or be sure about how much a NAS out of a Office PC would consume.

 

 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, Syncenator said:

I thought about something like Synology or WD Cloud very often, but I don't like the feeling of not being able to upgrade it very well, if you need like more drives or better hardware for whatever reason over the years.

I don't think upgradeability will be a huge issue for you. Even with 2 bays and raid 1, dual 8 or 12tb drives should last you a long time. I don't see a big problem here

 

3 minutes ago, Syncenator said:

I wonder how I can somehow check or be sure about how much a NAS out of a Office PC would consume.

You can use a kill a watt meter or simmilar to measure power consumption.

 

 

[Syncenator]

48 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I don't think upgradeability will be a huge issue for you. Even with 2 bays and raid 1, dual 8 or 12tb drives should last you a long time. I don't see a big problem here

 

You can use a kill a watt meter or simmilar to measure power consumption.

 

 

But dual 8TB or 12TB are well above my total budget for this, it would cost almost a 1000€. I might have to take a look at 4TB and less, they are not too expensive.

That's true, but it would be kinda useless in my case because I have to know it beforehand, since when I already have the system then it is too late.

[Syncenator]

So to summarize it so far:

 

Either I have to get a used system off Ebay, which I can use as NAS / Unraid server and be able to add more cheaper 2TB drives in the future or I have to get one of these prebuild solutions, like a Synology NAS and WD Cloud with like more expensive two 4TB drives, since I can only get bigger drives but can't easily upgrade to more drives. The last solution would be just getting a 2TB USB HDD for now so I can do another backup on it, but has the problem of one day not having enough space I guess.

[Electronics Wizardy]

12 minutes ago, Syncenator said:

But dual 8TB or 12TB are well above my total budget for this, it would cost almost a 1000€. I might have to take a look at 4TB and less, they are not too expensive.

That's true, but it would be kinda useless in my case because I have to know it beforehand, since when I already have the system then it is too late.

Where are you? You should be able to get a 8tb drive for less than 200 euros, get a shucked external  if you want it cheaper.

 

 

[Mihle]

3 hours ago, Syncenator said:

 

That sounds very interesting, I wonder if the motherboard formfactor makes a big difference in power consumption. I also wonder what power settings you can set up for your own NAS, like can you set the drives to go on standby or something when they are not needed and the CPU to reduce the clock speeds whenever it is not used to reduce its consumption? Because that could probably also make a big difference over time.

 

Yeah, it's very expensive over here, like almost 0,30€ per kWh, so it makes about 130€ per year when running it 24/7 at 50w.

 

I wonder how I can somehow check or be sure about how much a NAS out of a Office PC would consume.

 

There are things you can put in between the plug on the PC/NAS and the socket that measure power draw.

 

I have a cheap one so I don't know how accurate it is, but it shouldn't be too far off the real value.

 

Normal CPUs do change its clockspeed based on the load it's gets. 

Depending on what you go for you can choose to let the HDDs stop spinning when not in use for a while, and that will lower the electricity usage, but then if you try to access it when they are spin down it will take a few seconds for them to spin up.

Also, fewer larger HDDs will use less power than more smaller ones, tho I don't have spesific numbers on it.

 

I plugged my NAS in to it and it seems to use about 35-38w when I don't do anything special on it, but I have the HDDs to always be spinning.

I dont actually know how motherboard form factor affect power usage, it probably does but I doubt it's huge difference, the real question is of it's noticeable, like is it 1w or is it 10w?, I dont know but some might have tested it. Mine is ITX just because I wanted my NAS to be physically smaller, I did not think of power.

 

In the same CPU generation, a weaker CPU will ofc use less power at idle than a more powerful one. If you only do direct file access and not any transcoding of video for example you don't need a powerful CPU at all.

[Syncenator]

5 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Where are you? You should be able to get a 8tb drive for less than 200 euros, get a shucked external  if you want it cheaper.

 

 

I am from Germany and 8TB drives are slightly over 200€, only USB ones are cheaper around 130€. The cheaper price for external ones is kinda interesting, I will take a look into it.

 

2 hours ago, Mihle said:

There are things you can put in between the plug on the PC/NAS and the socket that measure power draw.

 

I have a cheap one so I don't know how accurate it is, but it shouldn't be too far off the real value.

 

Normal CPUs do change its clockspeed based on the load it's gets. 

Depending on what you go for you can choose to let the HDDs stop spinning when not in use for a while, and that will lower the electricity usage, but then if you try to access it when they are spin down it will take a few seconds for them to spin up.

Also, fewer larger HDDs will use less power than more smaller ones, tho I don't have spesific numbers on it.

 

I plugged my NAS in to it and it seems to use about 35-38w when I don't do anything special on it, but I have the HDDs to always be spinning.

I dont actually know how motherboard form factor affect power usage, it probably does but I doubt it's huge difference, the real question is of it's noticeable, like is it 1w or is it 10w?, I dont know but some might have tested it. Mine is ITX just because I wanted my NAS to be physically smaller, I did not think of power.

 

In the same CPU generation, a weaker CPU will ofc use less power at idle than a more powerful one. If you only do direct file access and not any transcoding of video for example you don't need a powerful CPU at all.

 

It's totally fine, even a rough value is better than none.

 

I was refering to the energy settings in Windows and totally forgot that mine is running at high speeds most of the time because I set it to max performance, so that question was a mistake from my side, but still thanks a lot for the information. Leting the HDDs spin down will probably be a good idea for the time I am not using my PC or won't acess it, so it will probably make some difference over time, especially when having like 2-4 drives.

 

I think I will maybe also try to do a step by step upgrade to more TB drives, once I have set up a NAS system, like 4TB and that should be enough for me even in the future.

 

That doesn't sound too bad, if I would get around the same power consumption. Maybe I could even improve it a little by getting a more power efficient CPU and even undervolting it and with letting the drives spin down I could maybe get it a little lower in total.

 

There is one thing though, I have heard that you could turn off your NAS, if you wanted or put it on some kind of standby mode, where it consumes even less? I guess something like that could be useful for me.

 

Yeah, I already assumed that you want to have a smaller system. For myself I think I don't really care that much for now, since I am just looking to get a cheap system that I could use and has enough SATA ports for potential extra HDDs.

 

Maybe instead of looking for an i3 or i3T, I should look for a PC with an Intel Atom or Pentium then, so it doesn't use much power, because I only want to store and access my files on it and not do anything else with it.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Syncenator said:

I am from Germany and 8TB drives are slightly over 200€, only USB ones are cheaper around 130€. The external one is kinda interesting, I will take a look into it.

Yea id get those external ones, Then you can take the case off and use them in any pc.

 

 

If you really care about power consumption, id just get a raspberry pi, plug the external drive in, then make a cifs share. Probably about 10w, and should pre pretty easy to setup and use

 

[Syncenator]

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Yea id get those external ones, Then you can take the case off and use them in any pc.

 

 

If you really care about power consumption, id just get a raspberry pi, plug the external drive in, then make a cifs share. Probably about 10w, and should pre pretty easy to setup and use

 

That would work too.

 

I guess I could also just copy the files over very quick and then plug it into the USB of one of my routers, then I don't have to buy a Raspberry Pi.

But I will still look up, if there is a way I can maybe run a used PC because it would be nice to have a real system just for such a purpose and it would also be a very interesting and cool project. So maybe I can do both things then, so I have another copy in case something goes wrong.

[Electronics Wizardy]

39 minutes ago, Syncenator said:

That would work too.

 

I guess I could also just copy the files over very quick and then plug it into the USB of one of my routers, then I don't have to buy a Raspberry Pi.

But I will still look up, if there is a way I can maybe run a used PC because it would be nice to have a real system just for such a purpose and it would also be a very interesting and cool project. So maybe I can do both things then, so I have another copy in case something goes wrong.

A pi should be much better than the routers usb share, with better security updates, and many more options.

 

 A pi would work as a real system and could run basically all linux programs.

[Mihle]

4 hours ago, Syncenator said:

.

 

There is one thing though, I have heard that you could turn off your NAS, if you wanted or put it on some kind of standby mode, where it consumes even less? I guess something like that could be useful for me.

If that's a thing I am guessing it's more of a thing with pre built NASes like Qnap or Synology, and not with unRAID, not sure tho, haven't looked it to it, so might be wrong.

Something like Qnap or Synology will use less power than an office PC or whatever as someone have said.

4 hours ago, Syncenator said:

 

Yeah, I already assumed that you want to have a smaller system. For myself I think I don't really care that much for now, since I am just looking to get a cheap system that I could use and has enough SATA ports for potential extra HDDs.

My ITX mobo have 6 SATA ports just because I wanted future proof but as I use 8TB drives, based on what I have already used I won't be using all. ITX mobos with 6 SATA ports is rare tho I think, most just have 2 or 4. ITX case I use, Lian Li PC-Q25  can take 7 HDDs but it's discontinued now. It was when I got it too but now it seem to be out of stock too. Realized it wasn't the quietest case tho...

4 hours ago, Syncenator said:

 

Maybe instead of looking for an i3 or i3T, I should look for a PC with an Intel Atom or Pentium then, so it doesn't use much power, because I only want to store and access my files on it and not do anything else with it.

 

[Pixel5]

13 hours ago, Syncenator said:

 

Like I said I already thought about it but the Synology NAS is not really upgradeable, if you want better specs or more bays you probably have to buy a new one. That is why other ways might be better that way, but I am not sure.

 

 

 

that is sadly how it is, i personally had a two bay 214+ model for years before changing it out for a 4 bay 918+ a few years ago.

 

Back then i did the math because my electricity is also very expensive and since im planning to keep this running at all times it would pay for itself within a few years with the electricity i saved compared to building my own system.

Of course my own system would have been more powerful but it would have also taken up much more space and honestly for file storage you dont need all that much power.

 

200€ is really not enough for either solution, old office PC´s wont do the trick as most of them will be Dell or HP with custom motherboards and only 1 or 2 Sata ports and Synology + the required HDD´s will be more expensive as well.

 

[Syncenator]

20 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

A pi should be much better than the routers usb share, with better security updates, and many more options.

 

 A pi would work as a real system and could run basically all linux programs.

That's true could maybe even run Pihole next to other stuff.

 

17 hours ago, Mihle said:

If that's a thing I am guessing it's more of a thing with pre built NASes like Qnap or Synology, and not with unRAID, not sure tho, haven't looked it to it, so might be wrong.

Something like Qnap or Synology will use less power than an office PC or whatever as someone have said.

My ITX mobo have 6 SATA ports just because I wanted future proof but as I use 8TB drives, based on what I have already used I won't be using all. ITX mobos with 6 SATA ports is rare tho I think, most just have 2 or 4. ITX case I use, Lian Li PC-Q25  can take 7 HDDs but it's discontinued now. It was when I got it too but now it seem to be out of stock too. Realized it wasn't the quietest case tho...

 

6 SATA ports are always quite nice, but I guess for me 4 would be already enough, since I don't collect that much data normally. I would take 10-20 years to fill another 2TB for me I guess. Kinda sad that the case is discontinued, it looks pretty nice for storing all the drives.

 

15 hours ago, Pixel5 said:

that is sadly how it is, i personally had a two bay 214+ model for years before changing it out for a 4 bay 918+ a few years ago.

 

Back then i did the math because my electricity is also very expensive and since im planning to keep this running at all times it would pay for itself within a few years with the electricity i saved compared to building my own system.

Of course my own system would have been more powerful but it would have also taken up much more space and honestly for file storage you dont need all that much power.

 

200€ is really not enough for either solution, old office PC´s wont do the trick as most of them will be Dell or HP with custom motherboards and only 1 or 2 Sata ports and Synology + the required HDD´s will be more expensive as well.

 

Yeah, the Synology NAS are quite nice. I already checked out the used PC idea and 200€ would be enough, I often saw pretty good Office PC's getting sold for about 45-50€ with 4-6 SATA ports. Then I could use a free NAS software or get something like Unraid for about 50-55€. For now I don't really need another HDD and if I would then only need one new one and it is also about 40-50€, so it would work fine. But yeah the power consumption of this idea would be higher.

 

Unfortunately it seems like anything more than 2 bays is like 300€ and more for a Synology NAS, while a 2 bay one is just 150€. I would have to either pay a lot more to get something like a 4 bay or also pay a lot and get 2 new drives bigger than 2TB, so I can use them in a 2 bay Synology and have enough space in the future.

 

I guess I have to run everything through my mind and do some calculations and think about what I prefer and then decide what to get.