External HDD + Backup system

FloRolf · July 2, 2016

hey guys,

a while back i made this post about a dual 3.5" HDD Raid 1 case but after reading more into it i'm not sure if i want that anymore.

(I want that because my internal 1TB is pretty damn full and i don't want internal HDD anymore)

The thing is, that most Raid 1 are unusable after failing for some reason and that a lot of people have problems getting it set up again.

So instead of me getting a My Book Duo 2x4TB raid1 i was thinking of getting:

- My Book Duo 2x2TB Raid 0

- My Book 4TB

and then use the Raid array as my main storage and make daily/weekly backups (of only what changed?!) to the 4TB "Backup drive".

To me that sounds like the better option which only costs me like 20€ more in the end so whatever.

Any ideas? Different solutions?

Thanks!

FloRolf · July 3, 2016

Nobody?

Captain_WD · July 5, 2016

On 2.07.2016 г. at 6:18 PM, FloRolf said:

~snip~

Hey there FloRolf

The plan looks good and I would say it may be safer than the initial one as having a backup is always better than simple redundancy. Though RAID0 offers some risks, if you have a current backup on the other WD My Book you should be fine and your data should be safe.

If you do go down that road (with the RAID0 + backup, instead of having simple redundancy with a single RAID1) make sure you have more frequent backups as if something happens with the RAID you will only have your data in the backup and the more recent it is - the better.

Another thing you could consider is having a NAS as a backup location instead of having to plug and unplug a drive to your system or to the My Book Duo, but this depends on your budget.

The ultimate solution would be to have a WD My Cloud Mirror in a RAID1 configuration that would perform continuous backups of whatever you do on the My Book Duo or have the My Cloud Mirror as your main storage palace and have a WD My Book connected to it that would be holding the continuous backups of the NAS.

Could you please elaborate a bit more on what in general are you going to store and if you need a directly attached storage to your system or if a NAS would work just as well?

Captain_WD.

FloRolf · July 6, 2016

22 hours ago, Captain_WD said:

Hey there FloRolf

The plan looks good and I would say it may be safer than the initial one as having a backup is always better than simple redundancy. Though RAID0 offers some risks, if you have a current backup on the other WD My Book you should be fine and your data should be safe.

If you do go down that road (with the RAID0 + backup, instead of having simple redundancy with a single RAID1) make sure you have more frequent backups as if something happens with the RAID you will only have your data in the backup and the more recent it is - the better.

Another thing you could consider is having a NAS as a backup location instead of having to plug and unplug a drive to your system or to the My Book Duo, but this depends on your budget.

The ultimate solution would be to have a WD My Cloud Mirror in a RAID1 configuration that would perform continuous backups of whatever you do on the My Book Duo or have the My Cloud Mirror as your main storage palace and have a WD My Book connected to it that would be holding the continuous backups of the NAS.

Could you please elaborate a bit more on what in general are you going to store and if you need a directly attached storage to your system or if a NAS would work just as well?

Captain_WD.

Thank you for your Response!

I mainly want to store games on it which is why i'd rather have it in a RAID0 to utilize the Speeds for loading times.

But i also have a bunch of private documents and photos, hence the Backup System is needed.

Is it possible to have the My Book do a weekly backup automatically of only a few selected Folders, and only the changes? I don't really Need to backup my whole game library every week.

Can i not have the My Book plugged into the Duo at all times and it will just go into sleep mode for 95% of the time?

By the ultimate solution do you mean that i'd have

- My Book Duo in Raid 0

- My Cloud in Raid1 with the Raid0?

Is that possible and how would that go if either of them died? Wouldn't i have to buy either of them again completely?

I think the My Book solution would be the best but the Cloud gives me the Advantage of cloud storage (Do i get the whole 4/6TB as cloud for "free"? (Other than device costs)

Oh and one more Thing. I won't trash the whole 4 or 6TB (roughly the same Price which is why i'd be going with 6)

at once and the games don't Need a backup, can i just use a 2TB My Book as backup drive? Or does it need to be the same capacity?

Thanks in advance!

Captain_WD · July 6, 2016

2 hours ago, FloRolf said:

~snip~

You are most welcome, glad to help with whatever I can.

As you mentioned gaming relies on the storage solely for the loading times. RAID0 doesn't really double your speeds as much as it increases your sequential speeds and has little effect on the random ones. This being said, you won't really notice twice as fast loading speeds on your games so I'd reconsider if the risk of having a RAID0 array is work the extra seconds of loading times (remember - graphics and FPS doesn't change based on the storage's performance).

In the end of the day, the WD My Book Duo is a regular external drive and the backup plan depends on what application you are using. If you have an app that offers scheduled backups you should be able to have weekly/daily backups on another drive and select between different folders.

You should be able to freely plug another external drive to the My Book Duo any time you'd like so having it connected isn't really required. If you do the backups occasionally you can have it connected only then and have it disconnected the rest of the time or use it on another device.

The ultimate solution that I was referring to was a RAID0 on the My Book Duo for extra performance on your local external drive for the data that you need and a RAID1 on a NAS which can act as your remote backup location that has its own redundancy. This way you would be safe if something happens with your main storage (even if it's a power shortage - the NAS won't be affected as it's not directly attached) or if a drive in the backup fails (you'd still have the other drive in the mirror array to rebuild it).

In that case, you will be having your RAID0 attached to your system and performing as it is and have a configured backup to the NAS (continuous or scheduled) by an application. In case any of the four drives (2 in the My Book and 2 in the My Cloud) fails, you would still have your full data available for a safe rebuild. Post back if you need more details on that!

NAS devices come with HDDs inside them (unless you have the option to get them as "diskless") so that's where your data will be. A NAS is basically any type of storage device connected to your network (usually via the router) and has its data available over the network to other devices. WD My cloud devices offer some additional features to that, but are essentially regular external drives that are connected to your router/switch via a network cable instead to your computer via a USB cable. On top of that they offer third-party app support, user and folder management and other features. Feel free to ask if you want more info.

You are not obliged to have a specific sized drive as a backup target. You can have backups of a 6TB drive on a 1TB drive and vice versa. The size of the target drive simply shows you how much storage you can fit there. For example, if you have a 8TB pool (2x4TB) but you simply ant to back up 500GB from it (let's say a folder with important documents) you can do that on any drive with free space of 500GB or more (the size of the data you want to back up). A backup is different compared to RAID1 redundancy where the size of the mirror is exactly the same as the main drive (if you have a 1TB drive and a 2TB drive in a RAID1 you will end up with 1TB of usable storage space, 1TB for redundancy and 1TB of unused and unavailable space).

Feel free to ask if there are any other questions!

Captain_WD.