RAID backup

NeghVar

NeghVar

2[H]4U
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May 1, 2003
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It is well documented that RAID is not a form of backup. But with large arrays, what is a valid backup? If you have a 50TB array, what is there to back up to except...a RAID array? Do cloud backup options use some other form of redundant data storage?
 
An off site backup of the array is an option. Cloud storage is an option.

The idea that RAID is not a backup really is more about the idea that a single raid array is not actually a backup. Having multiple backups of the data, preferably one or more off site, and perhaps the cloud. That’s a backup solution.

RAID in itself in a single enclosure is not backup. Even a single RAID 1 setup.
 
pendragon1 said:
tape can do 50tb or 150 compressed...
https://www.ibm.com/products/ts1170
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Extremely useful for archival situations. There’s no way I’d use this for anything I have have to access this century.

Building a second NAS is probably the best option and keeping it offsite.

But I guess either way you’re not going to be doing any speedy restores of any type.
 
Dreamerbydesign said:
Extremely useful for archival situations. There’s no way I’d use this for anything I have have to access this century.

Building a second NAS is probably the best option and keeping it offsite.

But I guess either way you’re not going to be doing any speedy restores of any type.
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while i agree, these new units are surprisingly fast...
 
What I have is an old Synology NAS (DS415) with 4 6TB HDD in RAID 10. I use it for backups of home systems and my Plex library. I am getting a new one, DS-1522+, in a few weeks.
So I could use the old one as the backup. Would powering it on once a month to perform a backup be a good plan? Or should it remain on?
The data does not change that often. So daily or even weekly backups are not required
 
3 copies of your data on 3 different media.

1) Online active 50TB array
2) Replica array ideally in another building/datacenter/region
3) Offline copy on external bricks/Iron Mountain/cloud bucket/etc.
 
NeghVar said:
What I have is an old Synology NAS (DS415) with 4 6TB HDD in RAID 10. I use it for backups of home systems and my Plex library. I am getting a new one, DS-1522+, in a few weeks.
So I could use the old one as the backup. Would powering it on once a month to perform a backup be a good plan? Or should it remain on?
The data does not change that often. So daily or even weekly backups are not required
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your call. its hdd based so powering it up every now and then isnt really needed.
 
You use an OS that offers parity drive protection for a large array. I have 60TB at home with 2 parity drives. Meaning 2 individual drives can fail and be replaced, the data rebuilt and move on, before I lose data. If 3 or more drives failed at the same time I would lose data.
 
kydsid said:
You use an OS that offers parity drive protection for a large array. I have 60TB at home with 2 parity drives. Meaning 2 individual drives can fail and be replaced, the data rebuilt and move on, before I lose data. If 3 or more drives failed at the same time I would lose data.
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Or you can hit one firmware bug and/or have some silent data corruption/bit rot and be screwed without a second copy.
 
I have my real important stuff on Dropbox. But my strategy is this. I have two 10 Bay NAS boxes. My newer main NAS has EVERYTHING on it. Set up as Raid 6. I have the other one also set up in Raid 6. Once a week, a script runs and copies all changes from the main NAs to the other NAS.
That , my friend, is my backup. Now, if I had a house fire and lost both NAS's, I have a list that gets generated and sent to dropbox every night. So I could restore my stuff by redownloading all of it. It is all movies and TV shows. Like I said, all important stuff, pics, data, tax stuff, is all on dropbox. So I would just need to download all tv shows and movies again. Not a huge deal.
 
NeghVar said:
What I have is an old Synology NAS (DS415) with 4 6TB HDD in RAID 10. I use it for backups of home systems and my Plex library. I am getting a new one, DS-1522+, in a few weeks.
So I could use the old one as the backup. Would powering it on once a month to perform a backup be a good plan? Or should it remain on?
The data does not change that often. So daily or even weekly backups are not required
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Powering it on monthly is fine. I have been doing this for years with no issue. I keep the second one off site and only get it when I need it. I used to do the backup over the internet but where I kept it at was having intermittent internet issues. I now keep it in a huge fireproof/ waterproof/ heat controlled safe.
 
jordan12 said:
I have my real important stuff on Dropbox. But my strategy is this. I have two 10 Bay NAS boxes. My newer main NAS has EVERYTHING on it. Set up as Raid 6. I have the other one also set up in Raid 6. Once a week, a script runs and copies all changes from the main NAs to the other NAS.
That , my friend, is my backup. Now, if I had a house fire and lost both NAS's, I have a list that gets generated and sent to dropbox every night. So I could restore my stuff by redownloading all of it. It is all movies and TV shows. Like I said, all important stuff, pics, data, tax stuff, is all on dropbox. So I would just need to download all tv shows and movies again. Not a huge deal.
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Many people would not trust their tax information with services like this. There are reasons this is generally not advised.

A nice Synolgy feature as of DSM7 is now the ability to entirely backup one Synology nas to another, entirely. Settings, files, everything. Its a nifty system. But the barrier to entry is relatively high as many people refuse to pay Synology prices for their hardware. I personally have used it for years and feel like its been worth every penny, and reliable.
 
I use backblaze, have around 65tb with them. My arrays are using hardware raid, so on windows backblaze sees then as simple volumes so I can use their standard unlimited plan. With gigabit upload it doesn't take very long. Technically I should have another form of local storage, which I do have an external drive for the real critical stuff, but I'm not building another server.
 
arnemetis said:
I use backblaze, have around 65tb with them. My arrays are using hardware raid, so on windows backblaze sees then as simple volumes so I can use their standard unlimited plan. With gigabit upload it doesn't take very long. Technically I should have another form of local storage, which I do have an external drive for the real critical stuff, but I'm not building another server.
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I put my mom on backblaze a while back. Low cost subscription service, unlimited data for simple users. She used it to do a full laptop restore when she got got by ransomware last year. Simple, cheap and it works.

Also, for some stuff, you may be fine using services in the cloud. I'm using Ancestry for old photo archival. Had to use backblaze for 80+ year old video I had digitized, tho. No one will care about my tax docs once my estate settles. Same with my Plex rips. That stuff can go when they get rid of it or the subscription expires. Some data I want to survive me.
 
A thought came to mind using my old NAS as a backup of my main. It will be powered up every month or two for the backup process. The new NAS will use SHR and eventually SHR2. Since the old NAS will be on for no more than a day. Would RAID 0 be practical, or a bad choice? It would lower the cost for greater capacity. If a HDD failure occurs, just do another backup right after the failed HDD is replaced.
Now none of this is mission-critical. The Plex library can be replenished over time. Systems can have a manual backup. Personal photos, videos, and critical documents (encrypted in a 7z file with an arbitrary filename) are already backed up on off-site BR discs, and Cloud.
 
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NeghVar said:
A thought came to mind using my old NAS as a backup of my main. It will be powered up every month or two for the backup process. The new NAS will use SHR and eventually SHR2. Since the old NAS will be on for no more than a day. Would RAID 0 be practical, or a bad choice? It would lower the cost for greater capacity. If a HDD failure occurs, just do another backup right after the failed HDD is replaced.
Now none of this is mission-critical. The Plex library can be replenished over time. Systems can have a manual backup. Personal photos, videos, and critical documents (encrypted in a 7z file with an arbitrary filename) are already backed up on off-site BR discs, and Cloud.
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I bought a new NAS and also use my old NAS as backup to the new one. And it works well.
 
jordan12 said:
I bought a new NAS and also use my old NAS as backup to the new one. And it works well.
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Yes, that is the plan. The question was about using RAID 0 on the backup. Based on how the old NAS will be used, it sounds practical to me.
 
Raid-0 is quite always a bad choice as any disk failure means all data lost and any bad sector at least a file lost if not a filesystem lost. Newer filesystems like btrfs, ReFS and ZFS offer checksum protection with auto-repair errors (self healing filesystems) on read but only when there is btrfs/ReFS/ZFS raid redundancy. I would never use storage as filer or backup without a minimal raid 1 or higher redundancy. You also want readonly versions on filer and best also a few on backup to go back in time if you accidentally deleted a file or on Ransomware incidents.

Any serious data security strategy needs a reliable Raid best with independent checksums on any disk + a bunch of readonly snap versions (with a hourly, daily, weekly, monthly retension policy) + an external (best offline outside data sync time) disaster backup or cloud backup that is quite current.
 
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For those who have made suggestions with costs going into the thousands of dollars, this is a home network with significant budget limits. Saving up for the Synology DS1522+ took 6 months
 
Since we already established a tight budget, I still say look into a cloud solution first. Using your old systems as a backup, especially on raid 0, is very high risk with very little protection. You would need that backup in case the main array fails, so you would be extracting 100% of the data on the raid 0. One little hiccup and it's all gone. There's an argument that the reading of the new array & writing to the old array once a week may be more likely to result in a failure than just not having the backup it at all, but that gets into math I don't care to start and math that doesn't apply to you. But if it's all you have, I think most likely having it is better than nothing.

Unfortunately with synology nas you cannot make use of backblaze's unlimited backup, so cloud may be more expensive than expected. In fact I just checked, and for 50tb you are looking at $3,600/year, and backblaze is supposedly way cheaper than many alternatives - https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/pricing I sure am lucky I stuck with hardware raid, at least when it comes to cloud backup costs!
 
NeghVar said:
what is a valid backup?
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Simple R-sync to a different group of drive.

Say you have a certain ZFS filesystem and you sync it to a different one (that has ZFS or nothing depending if you need speed or not),
Dreamerbydesign said:
single raid array is not actually a backup.
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Also, it seem that versus a simple R-sync between non raid 1 style drive, you loose backup realiabity for non-backup feature (like the ability for a systme to stay online and continue to work in case of drive failure), which make sense for server, work computer but not for user data usually.

Having a server OS drive being in raid 1 with a different one that you can boot instantly make sense (and wanted everything written to be copied as immediately as possible on the other drive), having pictures in raid 1 for a backup purpose now that software make it really easy to sync drive together, why ? You add all that can go wrong with raid, to gain I am not sure what.
 
NO, to raid 0, and really for backups, NO to raid 10, Raid 6 is your best bet when those are the options.
 
For what I do, I use the free version of Veeam and backup to LTO7 tape. For restore purposes, LTO will read at 750MB/s from source at 2.5:1 compression or 300MB/s uncompressed. It is not slow for that. If you are going for random access, then sure. Not sure if Veeam's community edition does cloud backup too, it may but I don't use it since I have onsite D2D2T for my backup needs.
 
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