NAS system

I have also looked into this kind of thing but is it really a backup? If someone steals it or there is a fire then you're still in the same position as before, unless you're housing it somewhere else of course.
 
I never look upon my NAS as a backup. It's simply a convenient point on the network where I can access my files from different computers.
Yes you can arrange the disks in the NAS to mirror themselves and perform various self checks and error correction (striping) but with a hardware based NAS if you lose the device, you lose your files
potentially. So the message here is a NAS is not a substitute for properly organised (and maintained) backup system if your files are important/ irreplaceable.
Another adage comes to mind, it's not the data storage that's the problem it's the data retrieval.
 
Backup to the NAS, periodically offload data to an external drive that you can store at a relatives house or even at work?
 
mbscad said:
I never look upon my NAS as a backup. It's simply a convenient point on the network where I can access my files from different computers.
Yes you can arrange the disks in the NAS to mirror themselves and perform various self checks and error correction (striping) but with a hardware based NAS if you lose the device, you lose your files
potentially. So the message here is a NAS is not a substitute for properly organised (and maintained) backup system if your files are important/ irreplaceable.
Another adage comes to mind, it's not the data storage that's the problem it's the data retrieval.
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But you can do all of that and more with cloud storage and there's no risk of the drives being stolen or burnt in a fire.
 
Depends how valuable your data is and how much money you want to spend protecting it. You need to consider how much data is important (Do you bother backing up O/S data, programs etc?) , how frequently you want to take backups, and how long you want to keep it all for.

As many people will tell you, RAID is not a backup in its own right, mirroring provides a level of resilience against drive failure. A NAS with mirroring acting as a backup to primary storage on your laptop or desktop PC is a good start, you should consider taking an extra copy either to a portable device or 'the Cloud' as insurance.
 
A downside to 'the Cloud' is access can and does go down, and there have been some well publicised problems of data loss, loss of confidentiality & even some Cloud providers shutting down so I would not treat the Cloud on its own as the only backup.
 
broc said:
A downside to 'the Cloud' is access can and does go down, and there have been some well publicised problems of data loss, loss of confidentiality & even some Cloud providers shutting down so I would not treat the Cloud on its own as the only backup.
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I've been using Google drive for years and never seen it go down, besides that you're going to have a local copy anyway so you're still going to be able to access your data unless it went down during a sync.
 
For me a NAS such as Synology provides better protection over a single ext HDD should it fail. With the NAS and multiple bays, there is better chance you recover. there are many features that come with the NAS, tools, external access, hosting webspace and more. However for a true backup you may want to consider something "offsite" too, a 2nd backup. All depends how important the files are i suppose.

For me the NAS suits.
 
connersz said:
I've been using Google drive for years and never seen it go down, besides that you're going to have a local copy anyway so you're still going to be able to access your data unless it went down during a sync.
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Google lost customer data during a lightning storm last summer, so it is not unheard of. Amazon and Microsoft Azure have lost data too. I would not use the Cloud as my only backup
 
broc said:
Google lost customer data during a lightning storm last summer, so it is not unheard of. Amazon and Microsoft Azure have lost data too. I would not use the Cloud as my only backup
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You just suggested leaving a drive at work or a friends house, is that any better?
 
connersz said:
You just suggested leaving a drive at work or a friends house, is that any better?
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I suggested family, not friends ;) I am not saying don't use the Cloud, I am saying don't rely upon it as your only backup. I wouldn't suggest leaving a copy of data with family or at work as your only backup either :) Having worked with large 'Enterprise' computer organisations, I know from personal experience they can sometimes be very cavalier with customer data.
 
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Synology.

Look at their 'Play' models (I think the 216Play is the latest), simply because you might also want to stream video from it, and the 'Play' models have improved processors and codecs.

You also need to ensure that you have a separate hard disk attached via the NAS usb port to back-up it up. Belt and braces I know, but if the NAS itself fails you might not be able to access the data on it's drives.

I have a copy of all my photos stored on my PC, plus on an external hard drive via usb, on my NAS and on it's back-up. Still vulnerable though, because all this kit is in my home office. Ideally I should periodically swap the external hard disk backup attached to my PC with another stored away from my address.
 
connersz said:
I have also looked into this kind of thing but is it really a backup? If someone steals it or there is a fire then you're still in the same position as before, unless you're housing it somewhere else of course.
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If it's a second NAS yes. Hell with today's Internet connections you can go wild and even locate a NAS remotely, then synchronize it over VPN. Or something.
 
Oliver Pohlmann said:
I use a Synology NAS to mirror my PC data then use Google Drive (cloud) to upload important images and documents monthly. That means my core business images and files are stored in 3 locations.
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And that's probably the best anyone can do, a mixture of solutions to provide 99% cover. Of course if Murphy really wants someone to lose their data his law can be enacted at any time ;)
 
I really wish people would stop saying that "NAS is not a backup". It can be!

That statement needs clarification- "If the NAS is your only source of the data, it is not a backup, ", however, if the data on the NAS is a copy of data held elsewhere, it is backup.

There are a lot of people reading forums without a lot of technical knowledge, so it is important to add the necessary clauses when making statements - hopefully that will reduce the confusion people experience when researching technical topics.

Personally, I have 2 copies of my important data at home, a versioned third copy of data held on my local drive (time machine), all backed up to cloud, and also held on a drive off site. I would always recommend minimum of 3 copies of data. I once only kept 2 copies ( i.e. original and 1 backup), but when I experienced a disk failure, and then only held one copy of my important data, I got very twitchy knowing I was only a user-error or hardware glitch away from losing everything.
 
The HP micro server with 4GB of ram and an G1610T can be had for about £110 after cash back now. Get the synology software installed on it and then run the 4 drives in raid pairs mirrored. You can copy important data straight from the micro server to an external hdd for keeping elsewhere if you need to.

It much better value than the synology and qnap systems as you need to buy drives regardless. The HP system is far faster overall and offers features found on synology and qnap systems that cost around £300 or more usually.

Cash back ends soon so get one purchased!
 
Rapscallion said:
Hi Jim, eg. If I have data held on my local drive, and backup that via an automated process to a NAS drive, then the NAS drive is a backup.
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So what happens if the property/house/office that the local drive and the NAS are in goes on fire and everything gets toasted?
 
admirable said:
So what happens if the property/house/office that the local drive and the NAS are in goes on fire and everything gets toasted?
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Then he goes back to post 22!
 
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Andrew Moore said:
The HP micro server with 4GB of ram and an G1610T can be had for about £110 after cash back now. Get the synology software installed on it and then run the 4 drives in raid pairs mirrored. You can copy important data straight from the micro server to an external hdd for keeping elsewhere if you need to.

It much better value than the synology and qnap systems as you need to buy drives regardless. The HP system is far faster overall and offers features found on synology and qnap systems that cost around £300 or more usually.

Cash back ends soon so get one purchased!
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oooh I might have a look in to this with mine. Can you still use all the apps like you can on a "real" synology units?
I'm thinking it could be good for home cctv
 
Here's another recommendation for the HP Micro Server. In the past I've tried many external storage and so-called NAS devices and have been disappointed. I got the Gen 8 Microserver on a cashback deal and set it up with FreeNAS, 16MB memory, and ZFS file system. Performance is good and its quiet in operation (at startup the fans spin up but then quieten down). There is a support community and lots of plugins for FreeNAS.
 
Matt-P said:
Lots of recommendations for the HP Microserver are making me seriously tempted to try this out.

Is this the sort of box being referred to? http://www.ebuyer.com/722189-hpe-proliant-gen8-g1610t-4gb-ram-microserver-819185-421

And how hard is it to get set up and running? I'm not overly techy so would I need to be poring over forums and google searches for days on end, or is it pretty simple to get going?

Thanks
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They are not for the feint hearted, as an ex IT pro I set mine up running Openmediavault in a couple of hours, my son struggled for a few hours before succeeding (with a bit of help from me via SMS). There is plenty of help available online but you may need to do some digging. You will need a basic understanding of TCP/IP networking and be prepared to learn about Linux file systems and permissions.
 
You could of course stick a £20 Windows 10 licence on a Microserver & use Windows file sharing & avoid the Linux stuff. Windows 10 has a neat feature called storage spaces which allows you to configure a variety of fault tolerant disk configurations with multiple disks of varying sizes, but be aware it is not a speed demon, great for archival though. I run a self-built server with storage spaces as my first level of backup, with an HP Microserver running OpenMediaVault as my second. I periodically dump off personal data, docs, photos etc to USB3 external HDD that are stored at a nearby family address.

I am a fully qualified IT Geek(retired) though ;)
 
Here is a cut out of google drive terms and conditions you should all be aware of, I suspect other cloud services will have similar.

"When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services"

I'm not saying Google will misuse your photos, but they can if they want to.
 
broc said:
You could of course stick a £20 Windows 10 licence on a Microserver & use Windows file sharing & avoid the Linux stuff. Windows 10 has a neat feature called storage spaces which allows you to configure a variety of fault tolerant disk configurations with multiple disks of varying sizes, but be aware it is not a speed demon, great for archival though. I run a self-built server with storage spaces as my first level of backup, with an HP Microserver running OpenMediaVault as my second. I periodically dump off personal data, docs, photos etc to USB3 external HDD that are stored at a nearby family address.

I am a fully qualified IT Geek(retired) though ;)
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Brian, Is there a particular reason you use win10 for your 1st level rather than OMV for both? Just curious as I use an old PC running OMV for my NAS but need something else for backup of the NAS and am currently trying to decide between a synology NAS or a HP microserver running either OMV, Freenas or synology DSM.
I am arguing myself round in circles at the moment though ;)
 
seaodyssey said:
Here is a cut out of google drive terms and conditions you should all be aware of, I suspect other cloud services will have similar.

"When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services"

I'm not saying Google will misuse your photos, but they can if they want to.
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I agree that doesn't sound good. However you have to read it in context and particular the bit I have highlighted in blue which stops them just selling or publishing the info for no good reason. Also 1000's of businesses use google drive for confidential stuff. If they started misusing it then I think there would be plenty of lawyers and bad publicity aiming at them.

I have to admit though (and I use gdrive for business) that it still makes me nervous!
 
brman said:
Brian, Is there a particular reason you use win10 for your 1st level rather than OMV for both? Just curious as I use an old PC running OMV for my NAS but need something else for backup of the NAS and am currently trying to decide between a synology NAS or a HP microserver running either OMV, Freenas or synology DSM.
I am arguing myself round in circles at the moment though ;)
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There is a particular reason for me; I run Windows 10 Pro as a host server for Microsoft Windows Home Server 2011 (WHS2011) which runs as a virtual guest under Hyper-V. The Windows 10 host server is also intended to run another virtual guest for domestic CCTV recording when I decide upon which IP cameras I need & when funds permit (I have my eye on a Sigma 150-600 zoom for my Nikon D750 so they may have to wait a while longer).

WHS2011 is very effective at automatically backing up multiple client PCs (we have several) and provides incremental backups. Windows 10 with storage spaces allows me to expand my server storage gradually as my needs grow. My HP Microserver used to run WHS2011 natively but was storage constrained so I virtualised it. I used to back it up to external USB2 HDD which were very slow.

If I wasn't committed to WHS2011 & I wasn't an IT tinkerer, I would probably have a pair of NAS devices acting as a mirrored pair, whether they were PCs running OMV or dedicated devices such as Synology or QNAP would be down to how easy it was to mirror them, preferably in real-time.
 
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I use a qnap - and really pleased with it. Can use it for more than just a backup destination. Similar to Synology. Both have very good reviews.

In terms of are NAS drives/systems a backup, they are a means of supporting a backup of your data. A backup is essentially a copy of your data. As others have said, if something happens to that backup, then it is useless, but it is still a backup until then. No matter where the backup is, there is a chance it will be destroyed/unreadable/unusable etc. All you are doing is playing the insurance game. You are paying/getting something you hope you will never have to use. Where do you keep it? Each comes with it's own risks, benefits and costs. It boils down to cost vs. risk and importance/value of the data. If it is really important and you can afford it, make multiple copies in different locations.

For most people, just another copy somewhere besides the main disk that the data is on is fine.
 
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