NAS for Business backups?

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Cantroy

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I'm working at a place with a bunch of offices scattered around, and with 15-50 people at remote offices. I'm trying to set up a local VEEAM repository at each location for their desktops/laptops and I need a good solid decently fast NAS or such for on site storage. I don't need the 10GB, as the switches are all 1GB, but as I suspect a few machines will be backing up at the same time throughout the day, it cannot be slow, either. Note, we used to use Synology NAS devices with Storagecraft software and that worked VERY well, but management calls the shots. I have some leeway with the NAS, though, and I want to do it right. The Synology NAS devices were beginning to bog down the network, but I don't blame Synology for that, I think they were tampered with when some idiots connected a network link between an open network and ours, totally bypassing our Firewall.

I don't know what damage was done, the connection was pulled, and the NAS devices shut down and are now sitting on a shelf, which is a mild waste to me, but again, Management doesn't want something they perceive could be a security risk on our network. However, I still need on site storage; BUT, maybe a different brand would be an easier sell?

Since it is business $ and higher up peeps will be needing this service, I'm looking at a least 4 bay NAS as each location. I do NOT know the size requirements our how big a Veeam backup is for each location, but I don't know it shouldn't be too bad as I am comparing it to Storagecraft <again, a good solution, but Veeam allows a very easy central management point they and I liked...> I can likely get by easily with 6-8 TB drives. I just need to know which is the best box to put them into. No multimedia needs, although i would like it to be secure and able to run an AV program or such if available. I also would like to know should one become compromised, but I'm not sure how to do that yet.

Ideas?
 
SO. My company is 100% comfortable with homegrown solutions. So this entire post is from that perspective- if that isn't something your company would get behind, the simple answer is to buy another Synology. Or a QNAP. They're basically identical in all the ways that matter.

What I would do though is almost certainly skip out on the idea of a NAS and instead go with a relatively small actual 'server'. I put 'server' in quotes because desktop hardware could be used along with a desktop OS to save money.

It would cost more money than a NAS for sure, but not exorbitantly so. If you put together a small server - lets say something running a 4/6-core CPU and 16/32 GB of RAM in a physically small enclosure with hotswap bays, with an inexpensive hardware RAID card. We would then load ESXi on it and create a 'BDR' VM to hold the backups.

Advantages come into play when it is time to actually *use* the backups - the BDR VM will give you a landing point from which to manage and access the backups, and assuming you've got enough CPU and memory juice left over you can even boot up a virtualized copy of an important machine as part of a recovery step.
 
Yes, but I want a box I don't have to build... One might almost consider me lazy in this, and I just saw that Veeam certifies QNAP NAS with their product which leads me to do that... NOT because I am not already building a home grown box at home using Zorin Linux on a gaming PC to also be a main storage device for my family, but because I am the only technical person at my office right now. The supervisor I have is the next best technical person, but since I know she is retiring in a few years, I need something a bit dumbed down and yet reliable for the other people in my group to utilize. In short, I am the only server tech / geek here, and I have enough to do already.

That being said, once I am a bit more comfortable with Linux down the road, and it is MY fault I'm not already I admit, my opinion might change, but this would also rely on them hiring someone who also has some higher technical skills, or is at least willing to work to learn them.
 
Haha. That's fair. I still think you'll end up owning it - your non technical workers are going to be intimidated by even a QNAP or Synology user interface, especially if it is "important' since it holds backups. But I can understand the logic and you might have an easier time getting traction on something less intimidating than a full server deployment.
 
if you have the right Synology boxes they have "backup for business" app you can use, it's very customisable, can do full system images and targeted backups of folders on computers, it's a shame they don't understand how powerful them Synology are (also only the first backup should be slow every other backup afterwards should be incremental

to use Veeam your going to have to make a computer to run it on with its own storage and make sure it does not have any type off login permissions (backup servers should be isolated so even if someone gets your network admin access they still can't get into the backup server)
 
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