Online Storage for Server or NAS?

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KapsZ28

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I would prefer online storage since it is not in my home in case of a fire, but so far I haven't found any online storage at a reasonable price if you are running a server.

So my first question is, does anyone know of inexpensive online storage if you are backing up Windows Server 2008?

If not, then what is a good NAS device? One that already comes with storage, or a box to add your own hard drives? I guess I could be backing up anywhere from 2-6TB.
 
online backup is affordable and good for you, so you should do it if you can. there is no amount of money that you could spend at home to duplicate professional offsite backup.
 
bAMtan2 said:
online backup is affordable and good for you, so you should do it if you can. there is no amount of money that you could spend at home to duplicate professional offsite backup.
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Affordable for home editions, sure. I haven't been able to find anything for less than $500 a month if you want to backup a server.

I need something compatible with Windows Server 2008 that doesn't cost a ton of money. I'd probably do $100 a month for 2-3TB.
 
Why not just carry an 2 to 3TB external containing your backups to some other location (desk at work ...) 1 day each month. Rotate with a second external every other month.

A second problem with this large of backup to the cloud is bandwidth. Can you upload 3TB in a month or will that take 6 months to upload? Will your ISP shut you down for using too much of your "unlimited" bandwidth?
 
drescherjm said:
Why not just carry an 2 to 3TB external containing your backups to some other location (desk at work ...) 1 day each month. Rotate with a second external every other month.
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I have nowhere to lock it up at work. If I was going to do that, my best option would probably be to get a fireproof safe and keep it at home too.
 
rsync.net + zfsguru (from sub.mesa @ hardforums)

Use the geo-redundant option for business data
 
Are we talking about off site backups with home connections? I just do not see how backing up your home computer/laptop using a home connection could be anything be convenient. I mean, uploading just 2 - 3GB worth of data (DVD) takes 4 - 5 hours on my 1Mbps upload, I can only imagine backing up my entire computer.
 
Skillz said:
Are we talking about off site backups with home connections? I just do not see how backing up your home computer/laptop using a home connection could be anything be convenient. I mean, uploading just 2 - 3GB worth of data (DVD) takes 4 - 5 hours on my 1Mbps upload, I can only imagine backing up my entire computer.
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It doesn't have to be backed up all at once, and most places probably wouldn't even let you do that. But once it is all backed up, then you only have to worry about smaller uploads.

Either way, there doesn't seem like an inexpensive solution for backing up servers. I'll most likely go with a NAS. The Samsung Spinpoint F4 2TB drives are a good price. Now I just need a decent diskless NAS or build one instead.
 
I would recommend these guys:

http://www.backblaze.com/

They will let you backup terabytes and terabytes of data for $60 a year. They also have no upload or download speed caps or anything. I was able to upload my 6TB of multimedia from my NAS to their servers in only a few weeks crunching at about 50Mbit upload.

They do not support server operating systems at this time, but you can get around that pretty easily. you just need to provide the correct interface between your data and their uploading software.
 
? Why not just build you own NAS? I'm still cleaning the beer off of my keyboard I sprayed when I saw the price of that Cisco device.

And while backblaze seems to be cheap they do not seem to have data integrity in mind. I read an article a while back about how they have their data center set up and it was not promising. They don't even use ECC RAM. It's something like Kingston value ram with desktop grade hard drives.
 
Rent a safety deposit box at a bank.

Rent a post office box and send a copy to it each month.

Use your car trunk.

Lots of places to put a couple hard drives.
 
S-F said:
? Why not just build you own NAS? I'm still cleaning the beer off of my keyboard I sprayed when I saw the price of that Cisco device.

And while backblaze seems to be cheap they do not seem to have data integrity in mind. I read an article a while back about how they have their data center set up and it was not promising. They don't even use ECC RAM. It's something like Kingston value ram with desktop grade hard drives.
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I don't think their system is all that bad. My NAS in RAID is my primary onsite, and Backblaze is my offsite copy. I don't think I'm going to lose both at once.

Isn't that the point of a backup?
 
vraa said:
Great support, worth every penny.

Not going to settle for any excuses about a "cloud failure"
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If it was business critical data, then sure. But most of it is personal data. Anything I don't want to lose I have many backups of, but the rest isn't as important to spend $500-$2000 a month on.
 
SirMaster said:
I would recommend these guys:

http://www.backblaze.com/

They will let you backup terabytes and terabytes of data for $60 a year. They also have no upload or download speed caps or anything. I was able to upload my 6TB of multimedia from my NAS to their servers in only a few weeks crunching at about 50Mbit upload.

They do not support server operating systems at this time, but you can get around that pretty easily. you just need to provide the correct interface between your data and their uploading software.
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I'll check it out. The site I tried in the past I installed on a Windows XP VM, but the backup interface they provided wouldn't allow me to select network drives. :rolleyes:
 
you'll have the same problem. backblaze doesn't support network drives, so you would have to run the client on the NAS where OS support is pretty much OS X or windows (WHS maybe?)

it's probably safe to say they don't want people signing up for one "computer" and using network mounts to back up their whole house :) i'm sure there are ways around it, but i'm not gonna be the one to ruin the fun posting about it publicly!
 
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I backup my dedicated server on a home server daily. Well, I run database backups daily but the physical files I backup about once a month.

I've got a 10Mbps download connection though, so the ~170MB database doesn't take that long to download.
 
I use CrashPlan and Carbonite, as well as backups to external disk (stored at the bank). I'm most impressed with CrashPlan and may drop Carbonite after my 3 years is up. Highly recommend CrashPlan for backups, hell I'm backing up my all of my friends/family to my fileservers @ home then pushing my server backups out to the cloud.
 
I am going to look at that being that I run linux at home and CrashPlan supports it.

Do they throttle the bandwidth to some really slow value like some other "unlimited" services?
 
eddieclayton said:
I use CrashPlan and Carbonite, as well as backups to external disk (stored at the bank). I'm most impressed with CrashPlan and may drop Carbonite after my 3 years is up. Highly recommend CrashPlan for backups, hell I'm backing up my all of my friends/family to my fileservers @ home then pushing my server backups out to the cloud.
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Damn, their individual plan support XP, Vista, Windows 7, Server 2008/2003. That's perfect. I'll probably be trying them out. Thanks!
 
CrashPlan states "* Non-personal files cannot be backed up to CrashPlan Central." What does that mean. Aren't all files on my Personal Computer considered peronsal files? Do they not allow you to back up music and movies? Also, what about backing up Virtual Machines?
 
CrashPlan states "* Non-personal files cannot be backed up to CrashPlan Central." What does that mean.
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My guess is that means the software does not backup the OS.

Also, what about backing up Virtual Machines?
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You will probably need the "family plan" for that unless you have it backup the container files directly on the host.
 
drescherjm said:
My guess is that means the software does not backup the OS.


You will probably need the "family plan" for that unless you have it backup the container files directly on the host.
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Good point on the OS. That I wouldn't need backed up.

For the VM, I would really only be backing up snapshots of the VM. And all those snapshots will reside on the same server that I want backed up.

I guess my only other concern would be encryption. I am not thrilled about encrypting data on my server. Does the encryption impact performance at all or sharing files over your home network?
 
My guess would be that encryption would not put a high load on your server being that your upload rate would be slow (a few megabits max).
 
drescherjm said:
I am going to look at that being that I run linux at home and CrashPlan supports it.

Do they throttle the bandwidth to some really slow value like some other "unlimited" services?
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The bastards at Carbonite definitely throttle you, from what I've see CrashPlan does NOT throttle you as you start filling up their storage. I'm extremely happy with CrashPlan and recommend it to everyone (haven't had a bad experience yet).

KapsZ28 said:
Damn, their individual plan support XP, Vista, Windows 7, Server 2008/2003. That's perfect. I'll probably be trying them out. Thanks!
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That is another great thing I like about their product, they have a client for pretty much everything. The client is very lightweight and appears to work equally well on every OS they offer it on.
 
Right now it shows 30 days to complete the backup. Maybe I'll purchase the initial backup to make it faster. It is only running at 550 kb/s. It was originally uploading at 1 mb/s.
 
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