Safe Storage Solution for cheap

faolan · January 2, 2018

I already suffered twice because of data loss. The first time it was my fault (the most frustrating - if you format 2 TB Hard Drive accidentally it does really suck). The second happened like 2 days ago. Somehow only a part of it disappeared: in one sub folder all of my projects were stored. They are gone. I am mad.

Well I realized I need some kind of redundancy... But i am kinda confused what to get. I know that I want either RAID 1 or RAID 5. A usual NAS is not that fast and I don't need the benefits of it. I'd like to connect it directly to my computer, but it should be a separated unit. Are there any cheap enclosures or other affordable solutions?

samcool55 · January 2, 2018

You are confusing 2 things. Having a proper backup is NOT the same as having reliable storage.

Reliable storage is possible with stuff like RAID. Thing is, if you get ransomware that encrypts everything, it's all gone so that won't help you much.

What i would do is make sure you have both. It might be a bit of an investment but it's worth it when disaster strikes again.

So, 1. Get a nas, locally, if you don't need much storage just throw 2 hdd's in it in raid-1. Not very fast, but at least if 1 drive fails, it's not gone.

And 2. Ask a friend or family member or whatever if you can put a NAS at their house, preferably another one with a RAID-1 config.

What you can do then is configure it in such a way your system connects once a week with the off-site NAS and puts a backup there. If your house burns down (worst case i know) you still have a backup. And because the connection only opens once a week it's unlikely the ransomware attacks you at the same time the connection is open.

It's not perfect, but it's a solid start and basically covers you for most cases.