Storage Solution | BackUp Server | NAS

[ToUtSi]

Hey TechTippers,
Today I was thinking that everybody has a lot photographs and videos from his life...

Staff like School trips , vacation ,  family pictures etc....

Personally I have over 200Gb and I never want to lose them ...

Some years ago I bought a samsung T1 256Gb in order to save those "Memories"

Well, I always thinking what will happen if that drive fails one day...

So I want to build a NAS server with RAID 1  in order to have a lot of copies of those files 

**I dont want to upload them to a cloud (google drive, dropbox etc.)

 

Finally I want to ask what are you using for your personal file storage ? 

Do you have any Nas ?

I dont want to know how to build a NAS , I want to discuss with all of you the Pros and the Cons and how you store your personal files !

 

Thanks!!!

 

 

 

[Rohime]

QNAP NAS TS509Pro ...   6TB in RAID5 on site.

Backups to 2 x Multi-bay External USB/eSATA enclosures - 6TB each in JBOD(2x3TB).

Rotate one of the external enclosures to off-site location whenever backups done (whenever visiting family who hold the other enclosure offsite).

 

soi therefore have: Local NAS with local backup and redundant offsite backup (in case stuff at home is all stolen).

[Donald J. Trump]

Generally i try to follow the 3 2 1 rule: three copies, two on site, one off site.

I have an unRaid build with 3x 2tb disks + 1 4tb for parity + 1 ssd for cache.

Then i do nightly backups to G-drive since i still have an education email from highschool which has unlimited storage.

[Dark]

Local backup--

all computers use Crashplan to a network share.

the network share is hosted off a QNAP TVS-EC880 w/ 8x3TB in RAID 5e and 256GB SSD cache in RAID 0.

 

Offsite backup (located at a friends house 30min away)--

rtrr to a TS-451+ w/ 4x4TB in RAID 6 

 

 

I'm just about to start a new server build that will be an SSD only array.

[transposedmessenger]

Having a NAS with RAID is a great way to backup files if you don't want to put them on cloud storage. Personally, I use software raid to forego the cost of a hardware RAID controller. There are many ways you can backup to a NAS - Rsync, iSCSI target, CIFS/SMB share, syncthing and owncloud plugins. I've made a few posts on these things so check it out!

[Mikensan]

Hard to recommend without an idea of how much you want to spend, how easy you want it to be, how paranoid you are, and how much you're willing to learn.

 

Also while you decide on what to do and if you're nervous about losing them now - zip them and encrypt them - then upload to the cloud.

[psychostudent]

Since RAID itself is not a backup plan having multiple backups is always a good idea. For example a PC with a raid setup to store your files and backing them up to external HDDs just in case the raid fails. An even better idea is not to have the all backups in the same place but have offsite backups like have a copy in your bank's safe deposit box or in the cloud.

 

An you can never have enough backups. The hard part is to keep your backups up to date so that if you lose the original it has already been backed up somewhere.

 

The way I backup my important files are:

• Synology DS1511 with RAID6 is my main storage location. I upload file to it and they are the "originals".
• I have a 4 TB external HDD attached to the Synology that does daily backups
• I have a HTPC in the living room(seperate floor from the Synology) with external HDDs attached. I installed software to keep it synced with the Synology so I don't have to worry about keeping the HTPC up to date
• That HTPC also has Backblaze installed to backup everything to the cloud so that I have an offsite backup.
• I also have an external HDD that I leave at work and update it every month or whenever I remember it. To have another offsite backup just in case.

 

Probably a bit overkill but since I have those PCs and extra HDDs laying around why not put them to good use.

 

[ToUtSi]

On 9/12/2016 at 8:36 PM, Mikensan said:

Hard to recommend without an idea of how much you want to spend, how easy you want it to be, how paranoid you are, and how much you're willing to learn.

 

Also while you decide on what to do and if you're nervous about losing them now - zip them and encrypt them - then upload to the cloud.

We are talking about 4 TB max storage I would like to split it as 2TB personal data and 2 TB work data ...

I am open to new staff and I really like learning things!

 

[Mikensan]

Would still help to know your budget, but in any event..

 

2TB for work data seems like a lot, but greatly depends on what that work is I suppose.

 

If money is no object, then I would put your data into a double parity scenario. Something like a Raid 6 / RaidZ2 / 2-parity array. Then I'd invest into some external storage to back this all up to nightly/weekly. End of the year, retire the external drive and buy a new one and store this "yearly" device at a friend or family's house.

 

To do this and have 4TB usable, you'd need roughly 5x 2TB disks. If doing RaidZ, you'd buy 4 or 6 drives, 4 would would net you under 4TB though but pretty close. Buying in even numbers is just an efficiency thing for RaidZ2. 4TB disks I'd just do a triple mirror and buy 3 disks, but you'd come in shy of 4TB usable space (because computer math and file system).

 

For operating system, you have a plethora of choices. The simplest and fairly common solution is Windows using Storage Spaces. Because why over complicate things right? Some people like to tinker and enjoy learning new things, or simply want a very specific feature  or the illusion of total control and go with another solution such as FreeNAS / Linux / OMV. I'd make a list of what you want this to do now and what you will want it to do.

 

Honestly for just a simple NAS, can't hurt to go pre-built with Synology / QNAP.