NAS/External/Cloud

[ScottK]

I figured I'd solicit some advice since we have so many IT people in the club. I'm looking for a backup solution that works well, that is also affordable. Currently I'm using Carbonite, but they started throttling my upload speeds as I've passed the 150GB mark. Screw them. My next thought is to skip the cloud altogether as most other services are not unlimited or would charge way too much for my amount of data. I just purchased a new laptop and will be ditching my old desktop. I was thinking about pulling the 1 TB drive out of the desktop and putting in into a NAS and possibly running a RAID with a second drive. With the NAS my wife could back up her info there too. My other thought is to just get an external drive or two and back them up regularly and rotate them in and out with one drive always offsite. How are you all backing up you data? Any suggestions? I'd like to keep the solution under $200 if possible.

[lexuschris]

I've been stung by the lost HD curse, and I still don't have a super 733t backup process here....

At home, I just have a 1TB USB drive plugged into my desktop .. and use Windows backup utility to keep my system backed up. I'm primarily concerned over hard-drive failure ... so this would make it mostly painless to get back my system when the main HD fails.

It does not protect from house fires, etc. which would take out both drives. The next step would be to offsite duplicate the backup drive. That will cost some, and you'll be constrained by your local upload speed. (soo much for keeping it cheap!) Carbonite & others are good for those sorts of things...

I like RAID primarily for guaranteed uptime, so that even if a drive fails, you can still get work done. Crucial for a business ... not so much for home. RAID gear is pricey too....

Side note: some of the newer wireless routers come with a USB port and software to share the 'storage' device plugged into it. Gives you a way to create a shared drive for backups, without being linked to a certain machine...

---LexusChris

[StarRaptor]

Why not buy a standalone 1 TB back up drive? Last time I was at micro center I say a bunch and the price is already less then $200.

[bwarbiany]

(Full disclosure: I work for WD, although I'm on the SSD side, not in the HDD or external storage groups)

I have two NAS units at home, a 2TB single-drive WD model [MyBook Live] and a 2-bay Linksys model. I have 2x 1TB drives in the Linksys as a RAID0 stripe, and I actually mirror the data across the two NAS units to create my RAID. I do it this way because these are not pure backups, they're also archival for data that may not be stored on any other PC in the house, so I don't trust any single drive or device for that storage.

Today I have no solution for offsite backup, but would REALLY like to set something up. I'm protected from laptop theft or HDD failure with my current setup, but not fire, lightning, or natural disaster.

I am generally displeased with backup software. It usually creates a 'walled' backup file in its own format, and there is no way to actually go in and see or recover an individual file. For that reason, I use a software called SyncBack on all PC's in the house to copy the data over to the NAS on a scheduled basis. SyncBack is free, easy to configure & schedule, and very feature-rich for a free software.

If anyone has a good (reasonably priced) solution for offsite backup, let me know. My total need would be somewhere < 200GB, but I'd probably need a Linux-based software tool that can stay resident on my Linux server to manage data transmission from the NAS to the offsite service.

[nico soze]

You know in my day we had something that might work.....paper and ink

[lexuschris]

You know in my day we had something that might work.....paper and ink

Ludite!!! :p

[bwarbiany]

You know in my day we had something that might work.....paper and ink

You realize that you're not sending this by Pony Express, right? You just wrote that comment on an internet message board.

[ScottK]

Brad, I just bought a WD My Book Live last night. However, I am a little disappointed in the backup software. It wants to find all your pictures, videos, documents for you, then back them all up. I understand that it was designed for the average user. I'd prefer to be able have it back up only selected folders. I will look into SyncBack. That sounds like something that would work for me. I might just go with a RAID and buy another 1TB drive to use with the one I pull out of my desktop. Thanks for the advice.

[bwarbiany]

Brad, I just bought a WD My Book Live last night. However, I am a little disappointed in the backup software. It wants to find all your pictures, videos, documents for you, then back them all up. I understand that it was designed for the average user. I'd prefer to be able have it back up only selected folders. I will look into SyncBack. That sounds like something that would work for me. I might just go with a RAID and buy another 1TB drive to use with the one I pull out of my desktop. Thanks for the advice.

Yep. I don't use the bundled software either... I've found most "backup" software just doesn't do what I need.

[nico soze]

You know in my day we had something that might work.....paper and ink

You realize that you're not sending this by Pony Express, right? You just wrote that comment on an internet message board.

You mean this casual conversation? Yes. But everything important I do on hard copy. Burn my computer. I lost some ilegally downloaded movies and pictures from a party.

[Rezzin]

Synology.com makes some really nice NAS solutions.

If Carbonite let you choose an external device for backup I'd be all over that

Just remember (and from your post I'm sure you're well aware) that RAID1 (and higher) only provides disk redundancy - not data redundancy (it's a common misconception I hear)

You could always take an old PC, install freeNAS and load up a bunch of drives but a dedicated NAS box is just way sexier (did I just say that???)

Unfortunately we are in a transition period right now. Everything eats up so much data now and there's just no easy or cheap way to go about keeping your data 100% safe. Automatic backups, encryption, and affordable offsite storage. If someone finds this - PLEASE LET US KNOW!

btw, long time member who's been in hiding.

Hi

[grico]

I personally use a Drobo with 5x 2TB drives using their "BeyondRAID". I have never had a problem with it, and have also installed 3 for various departments at work.

Before that i had a FreeNAS box 4x 750GB in RAID 0+1.

I like drobos for end users because of their ease of use, but the cost is higher for that ease of use.

FreeNAS is pretty nice, and free, but I am sure there are some less complicated ways to setup your backups.

I use Rackspace cloud for some stuff, and its ok. I would rather just buy a box and not pay monthly for disks though.



D-Link NAS RAID http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822155019
or
Vantec external RAID http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817392024
and
2x Seagate Barracudas http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822148697
or
2x WD Greens http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136490

[ScottK]

Following up...I am using the WD My Book Live 2TB and decided to use SyncBack as well. So far, so good. The interface is easy to use and pretty slick. I've got my first scheduled sync for early tomorrow morning. I like the NAS and being able to access my music from all the household computers. Thanks Brad and everyone else for the advice.