NAS system

broc said:
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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Thanks Brian, I currently don't have raid at all on my OMV NAS. I just use an rsync script to do daily/weekly/monthly to a 2nd drive in the nas. Given I am more worried about backup than quick fixes I figured that was a better option than raid. The only problem is that both data and the backup are in the same machine, so a PSU failure or other damage could take them both out. I do do a manual backup to a usb drive occasionally but that only happens when I remember so is far from idea.
I am still undecided on whether to expand my backup to the cloud (going to be very slow with a 200GB of photos though...) or just put another NAS somewhere safe.
 
brman said:
Thanks Brian, I currently don't have raid at all on my OMV NAS. I just use an rsync script to do daily/weekly/monthly to a 2nd drive in the nas. Given I am more worried about backup than quick fixes I figured that was a better option than raid. The only problem is that both data and the backup are in the same machine, so a PSU failure or other damage could take them both out. I do do a manual backup to a usb drive occasionally but that only happens when I remember so is far from idea.
I am still undecided on whether to expand my backup to the cloud (going to be very slow with a 200GB of photos though...) or just put another NAS somewhere safe.
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RAID is a mixed bag of blessings, software RAID gives you a degree of portability in the event of hardware failure but at the expense of speed; hardware RAID fixes the speed issue but locks you into the RAID vendor, in the event of loss of the RAID controller you have to find another controller from the same vendor. RAID only provides a degree of protection from hardware failure, it is not a backup in it's own right. Think of a NAS running RAID as a fault tolerant backup device.

I am content to use software RAID (either the OMV flavour, or Windows Storage Spaces) to 'mirror' storage devices for personal use. The choice between a branded NAS and a DIY device is a personal one, if you are comfortable with the setup of OMV I believe they offer a potentially lower cost more flexible solution than a branded NAS.

I don't trust the Cloud, I rest more easily knowing where my data is. each to their own :)
 
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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There are some videos up on YouTube about how to set up FreeNAS, also about the Gen 8 Microserver. Suggest you have a look at those which will give you an idea of what is involved.
 
I have a Synology and I'm really pleased with it. Very easy to setup and low maintenance.. It automatically backs up to one of my older external hard drives and to my onedrive account. All stuff that I'm sure is doable on the other systems just my two pence..
 
The problem for me, I've found, is data retrieval, even though I have Nas'ss and external HDD and I copy files all over the place on the basis that two or more devices won't fail at the same time.
If it's a photograph I'm looking for you need to know its filename (original) or filename after being processed and printed.
I've not found an easy solution yet.
 
mbscad said:
The problem for me, I've found, is data retrieval, even though I have Nas'ss and external HDD and I copy files all over the place on the basis that two or more devices won't fail at the same time.
If it's a photograph I'm looking for you need to know its filename (original) or filename after being processed and printed.
I've not found an easy solution yet.
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could you use tags/keywords? I have really started to try and add tags/keywords on my photos when editing them (as I have been really poor at that in the past) and noticed that when the photos are exported, they are keeping the tags. Windows lets you search against the tags so you could find them that way?
 
rackhs said:
could you use tags/keywords? I have really started to try and add tags/keywords on my photos when editing them (as I have been really poor at that in the past) and noticed that when the photos are exported, they are keeping the tags. Windows lets you search against the tags so you could find them that way?
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That is the only way I have found. My biggest problem is to forget to tag images when I import them to lightroom :(

edit: The other thing lightroom does for me is import the images into a directory structure based on year/date etc. So if I am really stuck I can hopefully remember roughly when the picture was take and search from there. It helps that any pictures I put on flickr have their date stamps.......
 
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neil_g is selling a case and I'm selling a suitable motherboard (with ram and embedded CPU) for anyone who wants a go at building their own NAS/File Server.

I'm really pleased with my home server/backup server, but I'll admit it's took a substantial amount of effort. It's Ubuntu based, but if I built it again I'd use Debian.
For me, there's some huge benefits:
- It takes care of DNS and DHCP on for my home network, so I'm able to blackhole certain internet addresses which is useful for stopping certain applications phoning home.
- It runs pfSense and Plex in two virtual machines.
- I use ZFS which provides portable software RAID but with enough IO to comfortably saturate Gigabit Ethernet. ZFS snapshots make it easy to retain versioned backups which can then be transferred to the backup server.
- I've been able to script versioned nightly backups of my VPSes using a bit of rsync magic
- It has a smaller power envelope than my old Synology NAS and yet is much more powerful on the occasions I do need a bit of CPU grunt

The best part about doing it yourself is getting first hand experience with all of the different technologies and making it possible to fix things quickly and easily when they go wrong.
It's nice to have everything accessible (no matter what OS the client is using) and backups fully automated. My wife doesn't need to know how any of it works. She just saves a file to her share and boom, it's backed up. Equally, M-I-L's laptop runs a periodic job that backups over VPN to my home server so her files are 'safe' too.

I'm still looking for my ideal 'cloud' backup for off site. Ideally it will:
- allow me to encrypt all of my backup data so that no one else can access it
- either provide a linux command line client that works or enable backups via rsync/ssh
- be reasonable on the cost front

TBH my preferred choice would be building a third server which I can seed at home with the initial backups, drive it to it's remote site and then set-up VPN links so that I can ship backups to it just as I do the on-site backup server.
 
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