Physical (Off site) Back Up - Options?

Buck

Buck

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Hi

I currently back up my NAS to two WD Passport 1TB drives - one is then kept at my work and I then swap them over every week with one backing up each night until I swap over the next week. The other is a maximum of a week "out of date" but importantly not in the same building!

I am wanting to update these drives as (a) they are nearly at capacity and (b) I think there may be a better option.

So, I was considering a WD Green 3TB drive that I can plug into my HDD caddy (linked via USB to my NAS) and back up that way then use the alternating off site method to make sure I always have a back up out of the building. (I have a padded hard case for the HDD to transport/store it off site)

I can't even begin to consider cloud based back up as I run on 2MB download and 1MB upload where I live!!

Any thoughts on the above or other options?
 
I think that's the best option for you as cloud isn't an option!

I'd probably go for a dedicated external drive though, or a WD Red rather than Green.
 
Thanks Mike

The NAS has WD Red drives in it. Any reason you'd say red rather than green (I was thinking it would experience less read/writes so green would be OK?)
 
Buck said:
Thanks Mike

The NAS has WD Red drives in it. Any reason you'd say red rather than green (I was thinking it would experience less read/writes so green would be OK?)
Click to expand...

Edit: Red has a three year warranty compared to the Green's two - so an etra £14 for the 3rd year warranty
 
Mostly because they are designed for NAS use and have a longer warranty. The longer warranty would imply that they are built to tighter tolerances and last longer, the fact that they are recommended for RAID setups implies that they are more stable. The price difference also isn't much!
 
I never said that the greens weren't any good, but the Reds do have a longer warranty, which is the main motivation in my book!
 
Reds have actually had very high failure rates.
You may wish to check up to see if they have fixed the issues in newer drives.
Greens are so so for reliability - I've had a few of them fail.
Blacks have a 5 year warranty and are the only drives I buy now.

As for backup tech...
an external esata drive would be faster, running at native speeds. Just get an esata adapter for a rig and an esata caddy for a black HD.
I have a few of these and hate going back to USB speeds.
 
miker said:
Mostly because they are designed for NAS use and have a longer warranty. The longer warranty would imply that they are built to tighter tolerances and last longer, the fact that they are recommended for RAID setups implies that they are more stable. The price difference also isn't much!
Click to expand...

As far as I know Red are actually bigger drives as well with the extra space used to swap out bad sectors and replace them with good ones.

And don't want to worry you but all HDDs operate on a cliff edge of failure with massive amounts of errors occurring every minute.

It is only the error correction built in to HDDs and SSDs and the spare sectors which allow them to operate at all.
.
 
thing is, its not going in a RAID (not that in my opinion that would matter).

that aside, i would get 2 drives and rotate them so that 1 is always off site. in case the worst case scenario of the house burning down while you are making the off site copy.

e: oh and please do not rely on the WD passport drives. the amount of those ive seen fail is ridonculous. and the USB port is part of the hard drive so not even possible to plug it into another machine.
 
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Thanks for all your replies.

Aside from the brand of HDD ;) It sounds as though updating my Passport to a 3.5 drive is the way to go !

Will look at ordering a couple of 3TB ones this week - thanks again :thumbs:
 
Why not get the 2Tb laptop drives >? As long as you have 2 copies & the NAS drive, then failure becomes a non issue. I also don't like the WD Passport but there are lots of others..
 
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Diving Pete said:
Why not get the 2Tb laptop drives >? As long as you have 2 copies & the NAS drive, then failure becomes a non issue. I also don't like the WD Passport but there are lots of others..
Click to expand...

I'd rather go for 3.5" rather than 2.5" drive Pete and will continue the swapping out and physical off site back up as well as the NAS. Should be covered then.

The Wd Red 3TB has just dropped £5 to £82 as well so thats even better. :)
 
Just as an interesting update to this...
I've just had my first WD Black failure.
1 TB Black
4 years and 3 months old.
Been running 24/7 for the most part
Been running as a time machine backup for the last 1.5 years.

Lets see how the warranty claim goes...
 
Deadlock said:
Just as an interesting update to this...
I've just had my first WD Black failure.
1 TB Black
4 years and 3 months old.
Been running 24/7 for the most part
Been running as a time machine backup for the last 1.5 years.

Lets see how the warranty claim goes...
Click to expand...

Will watch this with interest....fingers crossed it is painless for you :thumbs:
 
Cheers.
Good luck with the reds.
I've just bought a synology ds415 pay and another 4TB black and another 1TB black.
So lets keep in touch with each other and see whose die first! lol
 
:D

I already have a couple of 3 TB Reds in my Synology NAS so keeping my fingers crossed too!
 
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