Backing Up

[TheCaptain53]

So I've had my PC for a while now, and I'm considering looking into a decent storage backup solution. However, it's come to my attention that LTT haven't really touched on this topic much in terms of what to do, best practices, despite them urging to BACKUP every time storage is mentioned.

What do you guys do and how much did your backup solution cost?

[8-Bit Ninja]

currently I have a 2 tb external drive, and I back my pc up monthly. My new build will have a 1tb ssd for a backup, aswell as my 2tb drive

[Xenift]

For me i don't backup my data, instead i make sure that my components are treated well by doing daily defragmentations and clean up work. Having a drive with alot of free space helps alot in maintaining the drive and it gives me peace of mind from losing my data.

[Wind]

using an External Hard Drive. this is mine http://www.seagate.com/id/id/products/laptop-mobile-storage/laptop-external-drives/backup-plus-slim/

[MayContainVennom]

Depends on how you are wanting to do the backups. One of the simpliest solutions as mentioned before is to get a external harddrive and use software utileties or simply drag and drop essential files. If your wanting to make sure your data is completly safe, offsite backups is a good way to go. This could be somethign as simple as uploading your files to Dropbox, Google drive or onedrive (Be carefull most of these services state in the terms and conditions that anything you upload becomes there property)

 

There is other serivices avaible for "cloud backups" but if you are looking to do it all yourself, software tools such as RSYNC that transfers data over SSH that can be automated with a simple CRON Job might be the way to go.

 

All basically depeneds on how much you want to invest into it

[Maleko]

I backup actively with File History - Fantastic feature!

 

Then backup three times a week all my documents and desktop.

 

Then backup monthly with a full system backup.

 

I carry an encrypted portable drive of all photos/documents etc

 

Also have all docs on the cloud.

 

 

Maybe overkill but I am a part time photographer as well.

 

I use Acronis for the backup drops.

[EmeraldFlame]

So I've had my PC for a while now, and I'm considering looking into a decent storage backup solution. However, it's come to my attention that LTT haven't really touched on this topic much in terms of what to do, best practices, despite them urging to BACKUP every time storage is mentioned.

What do you guys do and how much did your backup solution cost?

 

I have a lot of data that is extremely precious, family photos and videos along with some client files for freelancing web-dev that I have done, so my storage solution is a bit more grand than what most people have.

I built a small home server with 4x3TB RAID 5 array.So 12TB total with about 9TB of that being usable space. I then use Macrium Reflect on my workstation and laptop. It does weekly backups of those machines to my server. Then my server uses crashplan to encrypt and upload everything to cloud storage as off-site backup in case the apartment or something burned down. I'd like to do daily backups but the fastest consumer grade internet upload speed available to me is 5Mbps and it just can't handle it.

This set up gives me a few instances of backup and fault tolerance. If a file gets messed up on my workstation, I can grab another copy off the server. If an HDD fails completely in the workstation, I replace the drive and restore from the server, windows and all is backed up. If a drive in the server goes out, replace it and the RAID 5 will rebuild. If catastrophic were to happen like fire, earthquake, flooding, etc. and take out both workstation and server. I build a new computer, and download everything from crashplan. It isn't an absolutely 100% perfect solution, but for my use it's about as good as I am willing to spend to get up to. All told I've invested probably about $1000 so far, most of that was strictly storage $100 each for the WD Red 3TB drives + $250 for a used LSI 9266-8i raid controller. So $650 of my $1000 was just hard drives and the controller. Within the next year or so I will probably migrate this to an 8x3TB RAID 6 which should give me about 18TB of usable space with double fault tolerance.

This setup is likely overkill for most people. If you have less than 4TB of data. I would buy an external drive and backup to it regularly and seriously consider crashplan. It isn't that expensive ($60 a year unlimited space) and if a natural disaster happens you can still get your data.

 

For me i don't backup my data, instead i make sure that my components are treated well by doing daily defragmentations and clean up work. Having a drive with alot of free space helps alot in maintaining the drive and it gives me peace of mind from losing my data.

 

Dear god man go get a back up solution now. Doing daily defrags and clean up work WILL NOT EXTEND THE LIFE OF YOUR DRIVE. In fact in many instances it will shorten it. If that drive goes south, you will lose data go get a backup.

[TheCaptain53]

@EmeraldFlame, holy shit, that's a bad ass back up solution.

My data isn't too precious, just an OS and games. I do have two drives in my system, so I was wondering if anyone had a dual-drive back up solution. Something on the cheap, preferably. Losing my data would be inconvenient, but not catastrophic.

I would invest in a NAS and use some of the space for my backups, but I don't have structured cabling in my house, so that's not great. I could plug it into my router and access it via wireless (I live up two flights of stairs), but then again, it's over wireless. 

Has anybody tried something like a 3-drive NAS solution in a RAID 5? That's something I'd look into.

[EmeraldFlame]

@EmeraldFlame, holy shit, that's a bad ass back up solution.

My data isn't too precious, just an OS and games. I do have two drives in my system, so I was wondering if anyone had a dual-drive back up solution. Something on the cheap, preferably. Losing my data would be inconvenient, but not catastrophic.

I would invest in a NAS and use some of the space for my backups, but I don't have structured cabling in my house, so that's not great. I could plug it into my router and access it via wireless (I live up two flights of stairs), but then again, it's over wireless. 

Has anybody tried something like a 3-drive NAS solution in a RAID 5? That's something I'd look into.

How big are the two drives you have and are they in the same computer? You can get some obscenely large external drives now that may fit your needs depending on size of those 2 drives.

The NAS enclosure like those from Synology and others like it are pretty great out of the box solutions, and you can make your own using FreeNAS pretty easily for a little bit less if you don't mind the setup. Do you have any idea what kind of budget you would have for setting up your backup? What are your internet upload speeds like? Crashplan by itself is a pretty effective and cheap solution to backup, but if you have a lot of data it's rough without fast internet.

[TheCaptain53]

How big are the two drives you have and are they in the same computer? You can get some obscenely large external drives now that may fit your needs depending on size of those 2 drives.

The NAS enclosure like those from Synology and others like it are pretty great out of the box solutions, and you can make your own using FreeNAS pretty easily for a little bit less if you don't mind the setup. Do you have any idea what kind of budget you would have for setting up your backup? What are your internet upload speeds like? Crashplan by itself is a pretty effective and cheap solution to backup, but if you have a lot of data it's rough without fast internet.

My internet is crap, I get 5 Mbps. My boot drive is a 120GB SSD (which I may be upgrading to a Samsung 850 EVO 250GB at some point, though I could easily get away with a 120GB as it's for my OS and core programs only), and a Seagate 1TB drive (which I may also upgrade to a WD 2TB). After a brief look, I'm thinking of getting a 4 bay Netgear NAS drive and adding 2 WD Red 3TB in a RAID 1, then I can expand as of when it's necessary. 3TB usable storage should be enough for me, but I can always add another 3TB and use it in a RAID 5 instead.

 

Would it be better to build a compact PC and use FreeNAS? I haven't had any experience with purpose built NAS boxes.

[EmeraldFlame]

Any idea of what kind of budget you're looking at?

Honestly with that little of data I would be tempted to say just go get a single USB 3.0 3TB drive and back up to it nightly, and for that it will serve most people fine. If the workstation dies, you get a new drive for it and restore from the external. If external dies, you get a new one and restore it from the workstation. Just make sure all your files are in both places.

If you do have the money to go with something a little bit bigger and better, a NAS would be pretty ideal for it, and your idea of a 4-bay using RAID 1 at first and then expanding to RAID 5 later is relatively sound decision that gives you greater fault tolerance. However, you should keep in mind that it is pretty rough to go from one RAID type to another, so if you did go from RAID 1 to 5 you would likely have to completely wipe the RAID 1 to do so, although that is different from controller to controller some higher end ones allow it.

As far as if it would be better to build your own NAS with FreeNAS, it depends. Building a FreeNAS box would likely be cheaper and afford you some further capabilities and flexibility over an out of the box 4-bay NAS solution. 

However, to get things properly set-up on a build it yourself box, you are likely going to need to sink a lot of time into research along with initial configuration to get things running the way you like. With the NAS solutions from Netgear or their competitors you do pay a significant upcharge for the convenience of their system. It really comes down to how much time you want to spend messing with it. If you just want to plug it in and have a working solution in a few minutes, buy something pre-built, if your interested in doing the research and set-up yourself, build something. Either way you should end up with something that is satisfactory to your needs.

[TheCaptain53]

Any idea of what kind of budget you're looking at?

Honestly with that little of data I would be tempted to say just go get a single USB 3.0 3TB drive and back up to it nightly, and for that it will serve most people fine. If the workstation dies, you get a new drive for it and restore from the external. If external dies, you get a new one and restore it from the workstation. Just make sure all your files are in both places.

If you do have the money to go with something a little bit bigger and better, a NAS would be pretty ideal for it, and your idea of a 4-bay using RAID 1 at first and then expanding to RAID 5 later is relatively sound decision that gives you greater fault tolerance. However, you should keep in mind that it is pretty rough to go from one RAID type to another, so if you did go from RAID 1 to 5 you would likely have to completely wipe the RAID 1 to do so, although that is different from controller to controller some higher end ones allow it.

As far as if it would be better to build your own NAS with FreeNAS, it depends. Building a FreeNAS box would likely be cheaper and afford you some further capabilities and flexibility over an out of the box 4-bay NAS solution. 

However, to get things properly set-up on a build it yourself box, you are likely going to need to sink a lot of time into research along with initial configuration to get things running the way you like. With the NAS solutions from Netgear or their competitors you do pay a significant upcharge for the convenience of their system. It really comes down to how much time you want to spend messing with it. If you just want to plug it in and have a working solution in a few minutes, buy something pre-built, if your interested in doing the research and set-up yourself, build something. Either way you should end up with something that is satisfactory to your needs.

Alright, I'm hooked. Building my own NAS would be so much fun! At the start, I may only use a single 3TB drive and expand later.

What mini ITX chassis would you recommend? Preferably a 6 bay one. Hot swappable wouldn't go amiss either.

[EmeraldFlame]

Alright, I'm hooked. Building my own NAS would be so much fun! At the start, I may only use a single 3TB drive and expand later.

What mini ITX chassis would you recommend? Preferably a 6 bay one. Hot swappable wouldn't go amiss either.

 

Personally I went with a mATX with a Fractal Design Node 804. I wanted something that looks decent as it's relatively visible at my current apartment. The Silverstone DS380 is a solid ITX choice though. Honestly, had I known of that specific cases existence when I built my server, I probably would have gotten it instead.

You can take a look at my build log here: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/223987-complete-emeralds-home-server/

May give you some ideas.