NAS & Backup

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AnotherUser

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 7, 2011
Messages
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I've got a small business that I support that I believe could benefit from some type of NAS. Currently there are only two PCs but there are many files stored on each of these that could either be A)hosted on the NAS or B) backed up to the NAS.

I think the file size is under 10GB at this time which would make it easy for some type of external USB backup for off site storage because RAID IS NOT BACKUP.

So I'm looking at Buffalo, Synology etc, what would everyone recommend? Cloud or remote features are not needed at this time along with many other features but I think this could be a cheaper route than a full blow server?
 
2 computers doesn't require NAS. Setup one machine to have a Shared Folder called Storage. Map it as an S drive.

Setup Crashplan on both machines.

Even better put SSD in "server' pc
 
By Crashplan I believe you're referring to the local backup features.. so Crashplan would backup to one of the two PCs.

marley1 said:
2 computers doesn't require NAS. Setup one machine to have a Shared Folder called Storage. Map it as an S drive.

Setup Crashplan on both machines.

Even better put SSD in "server' pc
Click to expand...
 
No setup a file share. Instruct users if they need to share data to place into mapped drive. M
Setup crashplan for online file backup
 
If you did want to go the NAS route, I highly recommend Synology. You can even have Crashplan right on it backing up.
 
I honestly didn't think I'd get the "leave it on the PC" response. I thought having the files on one box in a RAID setup + external off site backup would be easier. It would also enable me to backup clone's of the machines them selves in case of a hard drive failure.

Off site backup is planned but I thought this would be a decent addition. I'll look into it more.
 
For 2 users silly dropping $500 on an NAS. Won't have any performance increase over a drive in the pc
 
AnotherUser said:
I honestly didn't think I'd get the "leave it on the PC" response. I thought having the files on one box in a RAID setup + external off site backup would be easier. It would also enable me to backup clone's of the machines them selves in case of a hard drive failure.

Off site backup is planned but I thought this would be a decent addition. I'll look into it more.
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Having one of the boxes dedicated with a simple Raid 1 setup with a shared folder mapped to the other machine, as well as offsite backup on the raid box seems ideal, as you stated.
 
AMD_RULES said:
Having one of the boxes dedicated with a simple Raid 1 setup with a shared folder mapped to the other machine, as well as offsite backup on the raid box seems ideal, as you stated.
Click to expand...

One of the other things I was thinking was trying to capture an image of the entire disk. Probably use something like Acronis for that, this would help with a recovery from a HDD crash.

There is not a lot of data so I'm thinking CrashPlan in addition to simply copying files to a shared PC and copying to a disk for further storage in a fire-proof location.

Another idea in addition to the rest is securing the drives of these machines with TrueCrypt after making an image-backup of each machine) so that physical access to the data would not be possible without that key.

Any input on all of this?
 
Doing an image capture is great, but how often are you going to do that? A basic image is going to run 20 GB or so, probably more. I actually use Drive Image XML, since it is free instead of Acronis...

Yes, you can easily use TruCrypt to secure the image.

... however, to do this process on each machine will probably take 45-60 minutes to create an image, copy to a drive (external or on another machine), plus encrypting it. I usually compress my images to save space as well.

If budget isn't too much of a problem, just get a NAS that is large enough and push your back-ups to it either manually or through automation. Not sure how to automated images + encrypt at the same time.
 
jtr8178 said:
Doing an image capture is great, but how often are you going to do that? A basic image is going to run 20 GB or so, probably more. I actually use Drive Image XML, since it is free instead of Acronis...

Yes, you can easily use TruCrypt to secure the image.

... however, to do this process on each machine will probably take 45-60 minutes to create an image, copy to a drive (external or on another machine), plus encrypting it. I usually compress my images to save space as well.

If budget isn't too much of a problem, just get a NAS that is large enough and push your back-ups to it either manually or through automation. Not sure how to automated images + encrypt at the same time.
Click to expand...

I was thinking an image every 6 months or so, mostly for easy restore and not file capture. I'll have to check out Drive Image XML to save some cash would be great. I'd love to point them at a NAS but I'm not sure they are prepared for that.
 
Just get an external hard drive and plug it into the router or one of the PC's and make it shared. Then get some sort of cloud backup (Crashplan, Backblaze) and you're good to go.
 
Is there any possibility of growth? Ex: them adding more people, systems, wanting exchange or other collaboration tools, etc?

I would build something that will be easy to grow with and not turn into a mess later. A simple 2 drive NAS with raid 1 would do the trick for now and it could later on be migrated to a real server if the need comes. The key is having an always-on device that is plugged into a UPS and is central. Both users can shut off their PCs and not affect data storage. You'll also want some form of separate backup, for a company this small could be as simple as having one of the two users or yourself burning a CD-RW to bring home at the end of the week, or day, depending on how important the stuff is. Though an even better idea is a drive dock with a couple hard drives, but that would be more expensive and maybe even overkill if they don't want to spend the money.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Is there any possibility of growth? Ex: them adding more people, systems, wanting exchange or other collaboration tools, etc?

I would build something that will be easy to grow with and not turn into a mess later. A simple 2 drive NAS with raid 1 would do the trick for now and it could later on be migrated to a real server if the need comes. The key is having an always-on device that is plugged into a UPS and is central. Both users can shut off their PCs and not affect data storage. You'll also want some form of separate backup, for a company this small could be as simple as having one of the two users or yourself burning a CD-RW to bring home at the end of the week, or day, depending on how important the stuff is. Though an even better idea is a drive dock with a couple hard drives, but that would be more expensive and maybe even overkill if they don't want to spend the money.
Click to expand...

This is actually town hall for a small village. Chances of growth are slim at this point but you never know. I'd like to use a NAS but I'm not sure they'll want to spend that.

For off-site, cd's are already being used which is fine, I'd just like to also do online plus add the other machines. I think what I'll do for now is get a single disk to store machine images on and tuck it away in a fireproof safe then the data can go on CD's on and off site, plus online.
 
Sounds like the board is too worried about "cloud" backup.

So right now, I'll have an image of each machine to external HDD, to be done quarterly hopefully. Initial data backup to same HDD for each machine.

I'd like to do a PC to PC copy of files but I need to figure out how. They are on two different connections. Anyone have any recommendations for this? Would something like Hamachi work for a VPN for the two machines that are on two different networks? I could then use SyncBack and map drives on each machine.

Any recommendations would be great.
 
AnotherUser said:
Sounds like the board is too worried about "cloud" backup.

So right now, I'll have an image of each machine to external HDD, to be done quarterly hopefully. Initial data backup to same HDD for each machine.

I'd like to do a PC to PC copy of files but I need to figure out how. They are on two different connections. Anyone have any recommendations for this? Would something like Hamachi work for a VPN for the two machines that are on two different networks? I could then use SyncBack and map drives on each machine.

Any recommendations would be great.
Click to expand...

Have you looked at the (now defunct) Windows Home Server 2011 product? It can run on an old PC with a big enough drive to store what you need. Handles incremental automagic backups...

Hamachi might be a bit intrusive - the free version basically requires you to run it as a start up program as they've restricted the run as a service functionality to paid users (though, non-commercial use is supposed to be subscription based anyway).

If your routers are fancy enough at the two sites, some sort of OpenVPN setup on a site to site basis could be your winner...
 
You can grab an HP Micro Server on New Egg for cheap. Buy two 1TB drives and put them in a RAID1 using freenas.
 
nmanley said:
Coming soon... March. These should take care of your back-up needs.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178318

DO NOT BE AFRAID TO NAS or Local Cloud. There is nothing to it really. ;)
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If I can find something for a good price, I'd REALLY like to do some sort of network storage.

Does anyone know of any good articles outlining the flaws or lack there of for CrashPlan? I'd really like to easily do Off-Site storage and would like the board to read into it more.
 
+1 on synology

Bit more expensive but they've been in the NAS business for quite a while now and they have actual product lines not just one off products like that, which means that the firmware is in a constant state of being upgraded, historically a few minor releases a year and a major release ~1.5-2 years. You can check out the release notes for the current minor update that's in beta now, and that's not the full feature list that's just the list of things being added or updated in this minor release.
 
I had a brief discussion with the clerk and NAS may be an option. Here's what I was looking at:

Synology DS213
2x Western Digital WD5003AZEX

Sounds like the Synology software may be able to take care of my local backup needs.

One of the things I don't have is off-site backup but I'm hoping I can copy data to an external USB drive from the Synology and take it to another location.

The other thing would be the third PC at the other location, there are hardly any files on this machine so we might be able to take care of this via USB.

Thoughts?
 
for that small of a network I still dont see why the NAS. I am all for Synology usually do Raid 10 on teh 4 drive models.

The only reason I can see for the NAS if the 3rd PC at the 2ND location needs to access the same data.

You can use Cloud Station to Sync FIles from Location1 to Location2.

If going with Synology implement Hi-Drive or Amazon Glacier for backup. I haven't used Glacier but hear it is good. I have used Hi-Drive on 2 clients and it has worked. Not sure I like the company since it isn't US based.

So if going with NAS, create 1 share called Storage, map to the machines at Location1 as a S Drive. Tell them only thing backed up is if it is in the S drive.

At location2 setup Cloud Station and drop a folder onto the desktop. Instruct the users to put everything into that folder for backup.

Setup Hosted Exchange or Google Apps so you dont have to worry about email backup.

Are they doing Quickbooks or something else? Remember you cant run DB Manager on the NAS
 
marley1 said:
for that small of a network I still dont see why the NAS. I am all for Synology usually do Raid 10 on teh 4 drive models.

The only reason I can see for the NAS if the 3rd PC at the 2ND location needs to access the same data.

You can use Cloud Station to Sync FIles from Location1 to Location2.

If going with Synology implement Hi-Drive or Amazon Glacier for backup. I haven't used Glacier but hear it is good. I have used Hi-Drive on 2 clients and it has worked. Not sure I like the company since it isn't US based.

So if going with NAS, create 1 share called Storage, map to the machines at Location1 as a S Drive. Tell them only thing backed up is if it is in the S drive.

At location2 setup Cloud Station and drop a folder onto the desktop. Instruct the users to put everything into that folder for backup.

Setup Hosted Exchange or Google Apps so you dont have to worry about email backup.

Are they doing Quickbooks or something else? Remember you cant run DB Manager on the NAS
Click to expand...

Going with the NAS sort of automates things. The folks running the day to day operations are not tech savvy people and me going down weekly or even monthly to do these backup's for them is inconvenient.

I need to further review the features of the Synology software to see if it will do what I want but I think in the long run it would be worth the cost.
 
how are they gonna share files if they save all over the place?

need it to be central for any solution to work.

if you are just concerend with backup Crashplan is still the best option
 
marley1 said:
how are they gonna share files if they save all over the place?

need it to be central for any solution to work.

if you are just concerend with backup Crashplan is still the best option
Click to expand...

I will teach them how and where to save. For applications that save to specific places I will back up those files and folders.

As I previously mentioned, they do not trust "cloud" backup solutions because they do not understand. I haven't found any good third-party reviews on the security of CrashPlan etc.
 
I haven't found an online backup that isn't hipaa compliant.

You can setup synology backup to disk and set them up with a schedule.

If you talk to them about online backup you will make more on recurring revenue.
 
Here's what I've got planned:

Synology DS213 + 2x WD 500GB HDD's
Acronis True Image w/ Plus Pack for system imaging/backups
APC BE450G for the PCs and NAS
2 ZyXEL USG50 firewalls for P2P VPN

The NAS will now be at a different building and all backups will go over the VPN. I also entertained the idea of a separate external HDD for periodic backups for offline off-site backup since they don't want cloud storage.

Input?
 
I see no reason to go 500GB since you are buying all new.

Why not go at least 1 or 2 TB that should future-proof it a bit longer.

I'd also go with WD RE drives for the warranty / reliability.

I just got the Zyxel USG50 myself, and so far love it. THe interface is awesome.
 
ToddW2 said:
I see no reason to go 500GB since you are buying all new.

Why not go at least 1 or 2 TB that should future-proof it a bit longer.

I'd also go with WD RE drives for the warranty / reliability.

I just got the Zyxel USG50 myself, and so far love it. THe interface is awesome.
Click to expand...

Honestly, they are at about ~10GB of data now which seems really low for this type of setup but it's automated. The images of the machines will add to this but should not disrupt the 500GB much. I will check recent prices of 1TB drives and the RE's also and maybe get that in there though.
 
+1 on sinology

These things are slick. Plus they RSYNC and or you can use the software that comes with them. Also they will sync to Amazons cloud and you can seed your data prior to sync.
 
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