Where else to secure backups? .. After NAS

[copenhagen69]

So I have my home NAS setup, currently 4TB but will soon be needing more capacity.

This got me thinking, if that NAS ever died I would be hurting bad so then I started looking into cloud storage to have some redundancy, however for my needs it is like $10-20 a month for 2+ TB monthly.

Is this my only option? 2nd NAS? Thoughts?

 

[londiste]

Cloud Backup is a different service than simple cloud storage:
21 Best Cloud Backup Services Reviewed (January 2022) (lifewire.com)

 

[stinger608]

Hey brother, great to see you man!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'd be looking at an external 6 TB drive or bigger, do a back-up, then shut it down and store it. For that "just in case" moment.

 

[Kursah]

Data redundancy is truly key, this is always a great topic.

Depending on what kind of backup services you're using, we've used WASABI for Veeam deployments. It is more business-grade stuff, but its damn solid in my experience.

Pricing Landing

Predictably priced Wasabi is 80% less than the hyperscalers with no fees for egress or API requests.

wasabi.com

I agree that periodically replicating NAS data to an external HDD that you store safely is another recommendation to follow. This all depends on the level of maintenance you want to be active in of course.

 

[copenhagen69]

Cloud Backup is a different service than simple cloud storage:
21 Best Cloud Backup Services Reviewed (January 2022) (lifewire.com)

Not sure I know what you are trying to tell me? Like cloud storage is me tossing files on there sometimes and leaving it and cloud backup is more intense with timed backs up certain points during the day, week, month to be able to bring the systems back online without much data loss at all if needed?

Thanks for the link will take a look!

Hey brother, great to see you man!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'd be looking at an external 6 TB drive or bigger, do a back-up, then shut it down and store it. For that "just in case" moment.

Hah! It has been way too long Stinger!! Hope all is well bud, life has been keeping me crazy busy starting up my own woodworking/CNC business with the craziness in the world.

Thanks, I will take a look into the 6TB external drives. Is there no worry that just sitting on the shelf it will degrade somehow over time?

Data redundancy is truly key, this is always a great topic.

Depending on what kind of backup services you're using, we've used WASABI for Veeam deployments. It is more business-grade stuff, but its damn solid in my experience.

Pricing Landing

Predictably priced Wasabi is 80% less than the hyperscalers with no fees for egress or API requests.

wasabi.com

I agree that periodically replicating NAS data to an external HDD that you store safely is another recommendation to follow. This all depends on the level of maintenance you want to be active in of course.

Ah, gotcha, will take a look at wasabi anyways and see.

 

[Assimilator]

How much is your data worth to you? Is it more than $10 - $20 a month? Because if it is, then a cloud backup service is good value.

Or to put it another way, how much would it cost you to rebuild that data if you ever lost it? Would you even be able to? If it's irreplaceable, then why are you complaining about a measly 20 bucks?

Cloud backup services are data insurance. You hope you'll never need to use insurance, but if you do you are so glad to have it. In contrast, if you don't have it and you need it, then you're completely screwed.

 

[londiste]

Like cloud storage is me tossing files on there sometimes and leaving it and cloud backup is more intense with timed backs up certain points during the day, week, month to be able to bring the systems back online without much data loss at all if needed?

The other way around. Cloud storage like Dropbox, OneDrive or Google Drive is basically usable as a drive. Cloud backup services tend to have much more storage space for cheaper but they are not usable as drive and getting data back - or getting it back fast - might be where the cost is. Most of these services have gone through several iterations though so it might be more seamless and easily stated nowadays.

 

[copenhagen69]

How much is your data worth to you? Is it more than $10 - $20 a month? Because if it is, then a cloud backup service is good value.

Or to put it another way, how much would it cost you to rebuild that data if you ever lost it? Would you even be able to? If it's irreplaceable, then why are you complaining about a measly 20 bucks?

Cloud backup services are data insurance. You hope you'll never need to use insurance, but if you do you are so glad to have it. In contrast, if you don't have it and you need it, then you're completely screwed.

I dont mind paying the 10-20 a month if that's what I need to do. I am just making sure that is the best route to go for a small business just getting going. Then if it is, what are the better ones out there that have a friendly UI and toolset that could work with what I currently have and make it seamless. IE: manual uploads are frowned upon

The other way around. Cloud storage like Dropbox, OneDrive or Google Drive is basically usable as a drive. Cloud backup services tend to have much more storage space for cheaper but they are not usable as drive and getting data back - or getting it back fast - might be where the cost is. Most of these services have gone through several iterations though so it might be more seamless and easily stated nowadays.

oooh gotcha ... Ya, then I could go either way I think and mainly base it on quality/price I think.

I have the NAS I used for the extra "drive" per say. So I just need something to dump a backup of all that too and get to it when/if the rainy day comes.

 

[stinger608]

life has been keeping me crazy busy starting up my own woodworking/CNC business with the craziness in the world.

Thanks, I will take a look into the 6TB external drives. Is there no worry that just sitting on the shelf it will degrade somehow over time?

Oh man, I'll bet that's right!!!!!! Always a huge chore to start a business!!!!
I've been doing good man. Looking forward to retirement in about 8 months. Then the wife and I are going to do the full time RV'ing for awhile. We are going in with some good friends of ours to buy a 36 acre lot down in central Arizona. It's at about 3000 ft elevation so it will kind of be chilly at times but waaaaaaaaaay warmer than Wyoming.

I've had a 6TB drive that I picked up used a couple of years ago and haven't had any issues with it at all. It's one of the WD backup external drives. I think I paid $100 for it a couple of years ago.

I think as long as a person stores the drive in a dry controlled environment it should be fine for many many years. I store mine in a dark drawer in the house so I don't suspect anything will go wrong with it.

 

[claes]

You want your backup of your backup to be off-site. I highly recommend reading up on the 3-2-1 method of backups.

I’d recommend Wasabi or Backblaze. Less than $10/m for unlimited storage. Backblaze will send you a HDD in the instance of a failure to help you quickly restore your server.

Backup Strategies: Why the 3-2-1 Backup Strategy is the Best

A Backblaze survey revealed 54% of people said they know someone or have themselves recently lost data. Find out what you can do to prevent data loss.

www.backblaze.com

 

[newtekie1]

Do you have another site you could put a server/NAS? There is software that will do automatic backups to a server/NAS at a different location. After all, the cloud is just a server somewhere else. I use Backup4All to backup my important data from my home to an FTP server I set up on an old computer in my work office. But it could be a computer anywhere off-site you can put it. Your parents, a friend you trust, etc.

The setup would be cheap, and also just a one time fee for the Backup4all software and the computer. You can use free Filezilla FTP Server software.

 

[copenhagen69]

Oh man, I'll bet that's right!!!!!! Always a huge chore to start a business!!!!
I've been doing good man. Looking forward to retirement in about 8 months. Then the wife and I are going to do the full time RV'ing for awhile. We are going in with some good friends of ours to buy a 36 acre lot down in central Arizona. It's at about 3000 ft elevation so it will kind of be chilly at times but waaaaaaaaaay warmer than Wyoming.

I've had a 6TB drive that I picked up used a couple of years ago and haven't had any issues with it at all. It's one of the WD backup external drives. I think I paid $100 for it a couple of years ago.

I think as long as a person stores the drive in a dry controlled environment it should be fine for many many years. I store mine in a dark drawer in the house so I don't suspect anything will go wrong with it.

dang that is awesome to hear!! Pretty cool to hear about the 36 acre plan with your friends, enough room you wont ever have to see them if you dont want haha.

gotcha ... makes sense.

You want your backup of your backup to be off-site. I highly recommend reading up on the 3-2-1 method of backups.

I’d recommend Wasabi or Backblaze. Less than $10/m for unlimited storage. Backblaze will send you a HDD in the instance of a failure to help you quickly restore your server.

Backup Strategies: Why the 3-2-1 Backup Strategy is the Best

A Backblaze survey revealed 54% of people said they know someone or have themselves recently lost data. Find out what you can do to prevent data loss.

www.backblaze.com

yep, read that and mainly why I am looking for ideas and thoughts on this. Will check out Backblaze and Wasabi and see if they have decent utilities to work with.

Do you have another site you could put a server/NAS? There is software that will do automatic backups to a server/NAS at a different location. After all, the cloud is just a server somewhere else. I use Backup4All to backup my important data from my home to an FTP server I set up on an old computer in my work office. But it could be a computer anywhere off-site you can put it. Your parents, a friend you trust, etc.

The setup would be cheap, and also just a one time fee for the Backup4all software and the computer. You can use free Filezilla FTP Server software.

I do have another site I can put up a NAS at, but debating on this or the cloud. Especially at 10-20 + a month the NAS setup would pay for itself pretty quick.



EDIT:
Looking through Backblaze, I cant backup my NAS as they say it can be abused for cheap. So looking into their cloud backups, it would cost me $1000s to backup that way. So they are out haha

EDIT 2:
Looks like I found my backup provider... iDrive seems to be a great price and also can add to my phones and tablets too. They have an app for synology as well to make it seamless.

 

[Icon Charlie]

So I have my home NAS setup, currently 4TB but will soon be needing more capacity.

This got me thinking, if that NAS ever died I would be hurting bad so then I started looking into cloud storage to have some redundancy, however for my needs it is like $10-20 a month for 2+ TB monthly.

Is this my only option? 2nd NAS? Thoughts?

The way I back up my system is still the old HHD with the entire OS and set up on the drive. Since I use the ICY Dock system its just a no brainer to just copy from 1 HDD to another and shove it in a safe place. Once a week on important stuff. Once a month on the trivial stuff.

Also I tend to swap out different OS's on different SSD's.

 

[Aquinus]

You could always rotate an offsite backup. Use a large capacity drive, like 8TB or something, and every quarter swap it out with another full backup. Rinse and repeat. You'd need at least two drives to do this though.

 

[silentbogo]

Thanks, I will take a look into the 6TB external drives. Is there no worry that just sitting on the shelf it will degrade somehow over time?

It does, but not as much as people seem to think. I'm pretty sure you'll be rotating those disks at least once-a-decade, so no worries there.
Otherwise, you can simply do a disk check every few years (just to power it on and make sure everything is fine), or rotate them every 5 or so years.
Maybe in 2030 we'll finally get our petabyte memory cubes and you can transfer it all there ))))
Cloud storage is always an option, but it's always an expensive option (especially in the long run). That's why at work we've simply decided to build another NAS, rsync data from 2 servers, and then just pack and move it to a spare HDD as another precaution. Fortunately most of our clients only require keeping 2 years worth of data, so in case of emergency it's much easier to recover (now it's not TBs, but "only" hundreds of GBs). Last time one of our servers died it took me ~1 day to get it all up and running, and even then I spent more time talking to tech support, waiting for hardware to be replaced, and dealing with their glitchy IPKVM than actually copying data and configs.