NAS or pay for backups?

[NoahJamesTech]

Hello lovely people of the internet, I've recently taken over the tech infrastructure of a church, and I'm looking for advice about computer backups. 

 

Somehow we're currently paying for two backup services! Arq Backup and CrashPlan. 

 

There's about 10 computers on a mix of Windows and macOS. I'd like to move to a NAS as I'm pretty against paying for tech subscriptions if possible, and think this could be accomplished pretty easily with a decent NAS. I'm wondering what sort of opensource software exist that can be installed on clients and auto backup files, settings, ect. 

 

If a subscription is necessary that's ok too, but I'm looking for software I can set and forget on the clients where they can autoback up to a NAS. I do not have NAS built or specked yet, but I'd like to maintain around a year of backups so I'm imagining 10tb would be a pretty good starting amount.

 

Please ask me any questions for more information.

[ToboRobot]

from backblaze: "You may have heard of the 3-2-1 backup strategy. It means having at least three copies of your data, two local (on-site) but on different media (read: devices), and at least one copy off-site."

 

I'd probably look at a small Synology with a USB external drive onsite and some sort of offsite backup.  But you don't need two services, so pick one.  And if you want you could self host the offsite data if you have a homelab or something.

Or you can just have a bunch of drives, and keep some offsite.  You might not have a need to have all your backups quickly accessible as long as they are recoverable. 

 

[Eigenvektor]

You have to keep in mind that a NAS is not necessarily "free".

 

Aside from the initial cost, you need to pay for electricity and you need someone experienced in keeping it running. A cloud service could be more cost effective in the long run.

 

A local NAS also does not protect you against natural disasters such as fires, earthquakes, hurricanes etc. A good backup strategy is the 3-2-1 rule. You want 3 backups on 2 different mediums, 1 of them stored off-site.

[ieleja]

best go for "and" instead "or":

1. daily backup to local NAS,

2. instant sync to off-site NAS,

3. instant sync with external service.

 

and regulary check LOGs

 

it can be done on dedicated Linux server — file, print servers, NAS (Nextcloud) and backups server, software can be rsync+scripts or something like 'backuppc'

[AngryBeaver]

4 hours ago, NoahJamesTech said:

Hello lovely people of the internet, I've recently taken over the tech infrastructure of a church, and I'm looking for advice about computer backups. 

 

Somehow we're currently paying for two backup services! Arq Backup and CrashPlan. 

 

There's about 10 computers on a mix of Windows and macOS. I'd like to move to a NAS as I'm pretty against paying for tech subscriptions if possible, and think this could be accomplished pretty easily with a decent NAS. I'm wondering what sort of opensource software exist that can be installed on clients and auto backup files, settings, ect. 

 

If a subscription is necessary that's ok too, but I'm looking for software I can set and forget on the clients where they can autoback up to a NAS. I do not have NAS built or specked yet, but I'd like to maintain around a year of backups so I'm imagining 10tb would be a pretty good starting amount.

 

Please ask me any questions for more information.

Backing up to an onsite location like a nas is a great idea in the event a machine fails, but it will do absolutely nothing if your physical location is hit by a disaster of one sort or another. That is why the previously mentioned 3-2-1 thing exists.