NAS for Home backup

littlegreen · October 22, 2017

Hi guys!

Due to a hard drive failure I have recently started trying to scratch the surface of NAS.

I have been exploring different options starting from USB attached RAID enclosures, through ethernet enclosures, HP ProLiant (micro)servers, Intel NUC with external drives, and a mini-ITX system.

Obviously all of these have their pros and cons so I have been struggling to decide which way to go, but I got to thinking after mindlessly clicking around and I got an idea:

I am not backing up professional data, but it's still sensitive. I mean - nobody wants to lose all their pictures, documents, videos... And I had 2 hard drives fail within 2 days of each other recently. So I MUST have 3 of everything! You could say that's an overkill, but I can't go through what I did last week ever again.

So here's my idea for 3 copies of everything:

No1 in the main rig -> Syncs nightly with No2 in the backup machine.

No2 in the backup rig -> Syncs every afternoon with No3 - which is again in the backup machine.

That way I'm going to have a "Fresh" copy and then - two additional copies 12-14 hours apart from each other.

Going this way means all USB and ethernet enclosures are a no-no. I'm going to need to run a OS for this. And because I don't actually need a RAID to do this, I am leaning towards a mini-ITX machine with a case as small as possible.

As I said - I did consider a NUC with external drives, but that's just too many devices lying around. Yes - an ITX case would probably be bigger than a NUC and a couple external drives combined, but it would be 1 unit - easier to shove in a corner.

Besides, I don't need a lot of storage at the moment - 4TB does me just fine and most mini ITX cases can (easily) accommodate a couple disks.

Also, a friend of mine recommended I go with FreeNAS - I am pretty sure it'd be a breeze to schedule my little routine I described above, but is it worth using a full blown NAS distribution just to share 1 drive over the network?

What do you guys think? Maybe there's an option I haven't thought of?

geo3 · October 22, 2017

It's a sound plan. I use an ITX system for my nas. It runs Ubuntu server, has 2 data drives, and backs up one to the other using rsync. But I back up every 30min.

littlegreen · October 22, 2017

Well, my idea for the 12-hour backup is not just having copies of the data, but also keeping its integrity.

There's been a lot of crypto viruses running around lately and 3 copies in 3 different moments in time, I think will give me a little protection against that - or at least I'll have 24 hours to react.

Also, an ITX box will allow me to toy with server stuff at home - like a media server for my RPi, a home web server for toying with web design, etc. ...

I still don't know how to isolate the secondary backup drive, so that nothing can access it (and write to it) before it comes time for backup, but I'm sure I'll figure that one out.

geo3 · October 22, 2017

8 minutes ago, littlegreen said:

Well, my idea for the 12-hour backup is not just having copies of the data, but also keeping its integrity.

There's been a lot of crypto viruses running around lately and 3 copies in 3 different moments in time

With rsync you can configure it to not overwrite the backed up files, but append a time stamp. Frequently modified files will have many versions going back in time.

Or use a file system that supports snapshots like ZFS or BTRFS.

8 minutes ago, littlegreen said:

I still don't know how to isolate the secondary backup drive, so that nothing can access it (and write to it) before it comes time for backup, but I'm sure I'll figure that one out

One way would be to keep it not mounted until the backup runs. Wrap your backup script between a mount and un-mount command. Or you could look into whole drive encryption on the backup drive but that could get tricky to get working in conjunction with an automated script in a secure way.

heimdali · October 22, 2017

Get two more 4TB disks and use RAID1 for your live data and the 3rd disk for the backup.

You don´t need a second computer to do this, though it would be better. If you tend to shutdown your computer often, you can disconnect the backup disk and only plug it in when making backups --- or perhaps use an USB disk.

This is not exactly a good solution but a cheap and simple one.

littlegreen · October 22, 2017

True and true. But it sounds a bit more involved. A week later I will start forgetting to do the backups. I need it to be automated and I can't have a USB disk connected at all times - windows explorer gets way too sluggish. It wakes up the disk when you open it, and you have to wait for it to spin up... it doesn't work as well as I want it.

Also, I'd like to have access to the data while my computer is sleeping without having to walk across the house to wake it up. Standard Windows shares don't give me that and in that respect a NAS machine sounds a bit more convenient in that way.

Also, I already own 2x 2TB + 2x 1TB, so I was thinking to stripe the 2x 1TBs inside my rig to get a little extra speed edge, and to then setup the backup routine described above.

While a simple USB enclosure would save me quite a few quid (I already own a USB enclosure), the extra functionality is something I definitely wouldn't mind having.