Home Nas Backup

itachi737 · December 27, 2016

Hi,

I built a home nas a year ago with components from an old pc. I only had one 3tb hard drive so it lacks any type of backup / data redundancy. It mainly contains videos. (The family pictures are already backed up on google cloud)

I have some money now and I would like to buy a second hard drive to work as a backup. The way I see it there are two options:

1)Buy another 3tb drive and use raid 1, but as mamy people say raid is not a replacement for a normal backup since both drives ca be damaged during a power surge. 3tb drive price =100$

2) Buy an external enclosure and use it as a backup. 6tb external hard drice enclodure = 170$.

I m leaning towards the external enclosure because that would be enough to backup a second hdd in the future but I have some uncertainties concerning it.

A) my nas only supports usb 2.0

B) If I keep it plugged in the nas vis usb will it also be damaged if a power surge happens in the nas? (I dont my is the usb enclosure is fried, I just want the drive to be intact)

I know that I should have an off site backup location but if my house burns down my videos will be the least of my worries.

Thank You for any advices on the topic.

kerradeph · December 27, 2016

I would say the external drive is a better bet right now.

It's hard to say what would happen with a surge. Sometimes you'll get hit with a surge and nothing will happen other times it could destroy all your stuff.

Nuluvius · December 27, 2016

I would say backup and replicate to the cloud and save the stress and aggravation of having to manage/look after many disparate bits of hardware that will need to scale. Personally I use Google Nearline for backup and asymmetric replication.

Pixel5 · December 27, 2016

what you should consider before spending money on something is which data you want to back up.

Do you really need a full backup of everything?

Is all the data not replaceable like personal photos or documents?

if yes than go for a full backup, if not see how much data you really need to have as a backup and look for the best solution to get this done.

paddy-stone · December 28, 2016

It may not be an option for you, but personally I have a WD mycloud which acts as a redundant NAS in case of the failure of my actual NAS, and it backs up the data from there too. I also make a backup to a regular portable HDD of important stuff once a week or so.

Anyway, the reason I think the WD mycloud is a good idea, is because:-

It mirrors the data from NAS 1, so you're good to go still in the event of downtime/failure. you just switch to NAS 2 (wdmycloud).
in the event of failure, the data can be restored to NAS 1 from the wdmycloud across the network pretty quickly.
It acts as a backup essentially, although it's still a good idea to keep offsite backup for important data.

They aren't that expensive comparatively, I bought a 3TB wdmycloud for around £115, and as this has a WD red inside that is only a cost of approx £20 for the actual hardware besides the drive.